Digital Banking in the UAE: What Changed and What Comes Next

The biggest digital banking trends in the UAE since 2023 are national payment rails and rules rather than new apps: an instant payments platform, a domestic card scheme, an open finance regulation and a push away from SMS passwords. For a bank or fintech, the practical question now is what each change means for products, apps and roadmaps. This overview dates each change and suggests what to do next.

Digital banking trends in the UAE: a dated timeline

The changes below come from the Central Bank of the UAE and its payments subsidiary, Al Etihad Payments, or from reporting on their announcements. Dates matter here, because several rules have been revised since they were first issued.

Instant payments: Aani and what it changed

According to the Central Bank announcement, Aani launched on 16 October 2023 as part of the Central Bank's Financial Infrastructure Transformation programme. It was designed to process payments instantly, around the clock, using a mobile number or a QR code, through participating institutions' own channels or the Aani app.

What it means for products

• Customer expectation. Once people can send money to a phone number in seconds, slower transfer flows feel dated.
• Merchant use. QR based payments open new options for small merchants and service businesses.
• Back office. Instant settlement changes reconciliation and fraud monitoring, because there is no overnight window to catch problems.

What to do now

Check your institution's participation status and which Aani features you can offer. Then review the transfer flow in your app: how a user picks a recipient, what they see before confirming and how quickly they get a clear result.

Open finance in the UAE

Open finance lets customers share their financial data with, and start services through, approved providers using standard interfaces. The Central Bank's framework, published in the CBUAE Rulebook, describes a trust framework, a central API hub and shared services, with mandated licensees onboarded in phases.

The first regulation was issued at the end of 2023. Legal commentary reports that a 2025 circular replaced it, so any summary from before mid 2025 may be out of date. Read the current text in the Rulebook and confirm your institution's obligations and onboarding phase with compliance.

Questions for a bank or fintech

• Are we a mandated licensee, an open finance provider, or a business that will use the services of one?
• Which use cases matter to our customers: account aggregation, payment initiation, or data for lending decisions?
• How will consent be shown, managed and withdrawn inside the app?
• Can our backend expose and consume standard APIs without major rework?

Jaywan, the domestic card scheme

Al Etihad Payments introduced Jaywan in early 2025 as the first UAE domestic card scheme. The Central Bank's Jaywan announcement describes cards issued by licensed institutions, with a version for local and GCC use and a co badged version for wider acceptance.

For app teams, the immediate impact is practical: card management screens, wallet provisioning and merchant acceptance messages may need to recognise a new scheme. Check with your issuer or acquirer which card types are live and what changes the scheme requires in your app or checkout.

Authentication: moving beyond SMS passwords

Reports from 2025 describe a Central Bank direction for licensed institutions to phase out SMS and email one time passwords, replacing them with in app approval and biometric methods, with a deadline in March 2026. These reports come from the press and vendors rather than the published directive, so confirm the exact requirement with the Central Bank or your compliance team.

Whatever the final detail, the direction is clear. Banking app UX now needs to treat authentication as a core flow, not an afterthought:

• Bind the app to a trusted device and make the binding process clear when a customer changes phone.
• Use in app approval for sensitive actions such as new beneficiaries, with plain language on what is being approved.
• Design a recovery route for customers who lose their phone, without sending them back to weaker methods.
• Plan for web banking users who will approve actions through the app.

Neobanks and digital brands

The UAE market now includes digital banks and digital brands of established banks that operate mainly through apps. The pattern matters more than any single name: customers compare every banking app with the best one they use, whether that is a bank, a payments app or a telecom wallet.

For traditional banks, this raises the bar on onboarding speed, clarity of fees disclosure and in app support. For fintechs, it means the product must still feel trustworthy while relying on a licensed partner behind the scenes.

What a bank or fintech should do now

1. Refresh your regulatory map. Check the current versions of the open finance, consumer protection and authentication rules in the Rulebook. Date every internal summary.
2. Audit the app against the new rails. List where instant payments, Jaywan and open finance should appear in your app flows, and where they do not yet.
3. Prioritise authentication. If the move away from SMS passwords is not complete, make it the first item on the roadmap.
4. Test banking app UX with real users. Focus on transfers, approvals and recovery, which are now the moments that build or lose trust.
5. Prepare your backend. Standard APIs, event driven notifications and real time fraud checks are the foundations the new rails expect.

For a step by step build plan, see building an SME banking app. Other regulated sectors face similar questions, as covered in healthcare app cost and scope. The feature tier approach in property listing app features is a useful model for planning releases, and if your app shows offers or partner promotions, read in app advertising formats and UX first.

Where Codeeo can help with your banking app

Codeeo designs and builds the customer facing apps and software that sit on top of banking and payment systems. Our mobile app development and UI/UX design teams work on bilingual flows such as transfers, approvals and onboarding, and our payment integration team connects apps and websites to payment providers. With an office in Dubai, you can meet the team to review your current app against the changes above. Contact us to start the conversation.