Tabby wins SAMA consumer finance licence for SAR 50,000 loans

Tabby has secured consumer finance and SME finance licences from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), clearing the way for the MENA region's most valuable fintech to fund purchases of up to SAR 50,000 across as many as 12 monthly instalments and to extend working capital to merchants on its platform. The approvals push the company decisively beyond the short-tenor, low-ticket buy now, pay later model that built its 25 million-strong user base, and toward the broader credit institution its leadership has long signalled it intends to become.

What changes for customers right now?

The headline shift is ticket size and duration. Tabby's existing BNPL product in the Kingdom splits purchases into four interest-free payments and, per the company's general manager for Saudi Arabia, Abdulaziz Saja, has been capped at around SAR 5,000, a ceiling suited to clothing, footwear and budget airline tickets. The consumer finance licence lifts that ceiling tenfold to SAR 50,000 and stretches repayment to a year, on purchases above SAR 2,000.

Longer plans are already live across a roster of noon, IKEA, Fitness Time, Almanea, Almosafer, Almatar and flynas checkouts, rolling out to a first cohort of customers before reaching all eligible users over the coming weeks.

Why does the Murabaha structure matter?

The plans are Shariah-compliant and built on a Murabaha structure, meaning the total cost is fixed and agreed upfront for the life of the plan. There is no compounding and no late fees, consistent with Tabby's decision to strip out penalty revenue in 2023 to remain compliant with local ethical-finance expectations. That choice leaves the model overwhelmingly merchant-funded rather than dependent on the late-fee income that underpins many Western BNPL players, removing a regulatory risk vector as Saudi authorities increasingly treat BNPL as regulated consumer credit.

Which new categories does this open?

Higher limits unlock spending that everyday retail BNPL could never reach: education and tuition, travel, used cars, short-term rentals and healthcare procedures. Saja has flagged education in particular as a deliberate target, citing demand from parents seeking to spread tuition rather than pay upfront. Sellers in these higher-value verticals can now offer Tabby at checkout.

What does the SME licence add?

The second approval lets Tabby provide working capital to retailers on its platform, with a stated focus on smaller e-commerce sellers, many generating under SAR 1 million in annual revenue, that fall below the threshold commercial banks typically serve. That positions Tabby to lend across both sides of its marketplace, deepening merchant lock-in while addressing a financing gap in the underbanked SME segment.

How does this fit Tabby's wider trajectory?

The licences extend a regulatory foundation laid in stages. Tabby graduated from SAMA's regulatory sandbox and received its dedicated BNPL licence in 2025, one of a cluster of approvals SAMA has issued as it builds a formal credit framework under the Vision 2030 financial-inclusion agenda. The backdrop is structural: credit card penetration in Saudi Arabia sits at roughly 15 percent, leaving a large, high-spending population with limited access to flexible credit, and the Middle East BNPL market is projected to reach roughly $90 billion by 2030 at a compound annual growth rate near 35 percent.

For Tabby, the strategic logic is clear. The company was valued at $4.5 billion in an October 2025 secondary sale, up from the $3.3 billion it reached in a $160 million Series E led by Blue Pool Capital and Hassana Investment Company in February 2025, and its Saudi subsidiary reported net profit of $55 million on revenue of $378 million for the year to 31 December 2025. With an IPO on the Saudi Exchange widely anticipated, a regulated, higher-value lending product strengthens both the revenue narrative and the case that Tabby is becoming, in Saja's framing, something closer to a banking app. It also sharpens competition with Tamara, which secured Saudi Arabia's first consumer finance licence from SAMA in 2025.

Tabby serves more than 25 million registered users and over 65,000 businesses across the GCC, and is headquartered in Riyadh.

Why this matters to FinanceX readers

This is a regulatory graduation, not a product tweak. By moving from a SAR 5,000 BNPL cap to SAR 50,000 regulated instalment credit plus SME working capital, Tabby is converting checkout reach into a licensed lending balance sheet, the most credible path to the durable, diversified revenue an IPO bookrunner wants to see. Watch the credit quality of the new higher-ticket book and the capital intensity of SME lending: both are where the super-app ambition meets bank-style risk. For investors tracking MENA's fintech-to-bank transition, Tabby is the clearest test case.