Spare and Xsquare Bring Open Finance Rails to UAE B2B Payments

Spare and Xsquare have partnered to embed account-to-account "Pay by Bank" payments into business workflows in the UAE, giving corporate finance teams a route around the 2 to 3 percent fees and multi-day settlement lags that come with card-based B2B transactions. The tie-up plugs Spare's Open Finance infrastructure into Xsquare's B2B payments platform, targeting payables, receivables, and cross-border flows under the Central Bank of the UAE's Open Finance Framework.

What does the partnership actually do?

The arrangement routes business payments across regulated account-to-account rails rather than card networks. Xsquare's business clients gain Pay by Bank as a payment method inside their existing invoicing, collection, and reconciliation workflows, drawing on Spare's Open Finance connectivity to move money directly between bank accounts.

For finance teams, the relevant number is the fee differential. Card acceptance in B2B typically runs 2 to 3 percent of transaction value, with commercial cards sitting at the higher end of interchange schedules and cross-border volume adding further cost.

Account-to-account transfers replace that percentage-based charge with a small flat fee and settle in near real time rather than on a T+1 to T+3 cycle. On large invoices, the arithmetic compounds quickly: at meaningful volume, even a partial shift from cards to bank rails converts directly into recurring margin and improved working capital.

Spare provides the integration through a single API, which lets a platform initiate transactions across multiple use cases without stitching together separate banking relationships. That consolidation is the operational selling point: fewer bilateral bank integrations to maintain, and one connection point to manage payables, receivables, and cross-border payments.

Why is this happening in the UAE now?

The timing tracks the UAE's regulatory build-out. The Central Bank of the UAE mandated Open Finance under a regulation first issued in 2024, with the framework coming into force in phases through 2025 and licensing obligations extending into a September 2026 deadline for in-scope activities. The framework is built on a centralised API hub and trust framework, governed through the AlTareq standards and operated via the CBUAE spin-off Nebras, an architecture that differs from the decentralised, bank-by-bank models seen in the UK and EU.

That centralised design compresses the gap between regulation and commercial deployment. Consumer-facing Open Finance use cases such as account aggregation and payment initiation arrived first; the Spare-Xsquare partnership is part of a second wave pushing the same rails into business payments, where fragmentation and cost have been more entrenched. The deal follows Spare's recent launch of its International Open Finance Payments solution in the UAE, extending the company's move from domestic data access into transactional infrastructure.

How does Xsquare fit into the picture?

Xsquare, founded in 2023 and based in Dubai, runs invoicing, collection, supplier payments, and reconciliation on a single ledger, positioning itself as a financial operating layer for GCC businesses rather than a checkout gateway. Its existing model runs supplier payments over Mastercard's commercial card program, letting businesses pay invoices by corporate card while suppliers receive funds directly to their bank accounts. The company is non-custodial and PCI DSS Level 1 certified, operating through licensed payment service provider partners regulated by the CBUAE and the Qatar Central Bank.

Adding Spare's account-to-account rail gives Xsquare a second settlement path alongside cards, letting clients choose the lower-cost bank rail for use cases where card rewards and float matter less than fee reduction and settlement speed. Xsquare raised an angel round from AngelSpark earlier in 2026, with 500 Global also listed among its investors.

Why This Matters to FinanceX Readers

The UAE's Open Finance story is shifting from consumer data access to business payment infrastructure, and B2B is where the cost savings are largest. Card fees of 2 to 3 percent are punishing on high-value invoices, and settlement delay is a direct working-capital drag; account-to-account rails attack both.

For investors tracking regional fintech, partnerships like this signal that the revenue and defensibility in UAE Open Finance are migrating toward transactional volume rather than data connectivity alone. For corporate treasurers and CFOs, the practical takeaway is that a regulated, lower-cost alternative to commercial card rails is now embedded inside a workflow tool, not sitting behind a separate integration project.