Saudi Arabia based payments group PayTabs has struck an agreement to take over Amazon Payment Services’ operations across the MENA region, in a transaction both sides have already approved and valued at more than $100 million.
The move would fold Amazon’s regiplatform onal merchant-acquiring and processing business into PayTabs’ own and, according to the companies, leave the combined group as the largest dedicated payments infrastructure provider in MENA.
Amazon Payment Services, which traces its roots to PayFort before Amazon absorbed it through the 2017 Souq.com purchase and later rebranded the unit, currently helps more than 3,500 businesses take digital payments in nine markets.
Merchants can accept international card schemes such as Visa and Mastercard alongside local rails including Saudi Arabia’s mada, Kuwait’s Knet and Egypt’s Meeza.
The business also covers fraud screening, currency conversion, instalments and wallet checkout.
Transferring that footprint would give PayTabs a ready-made merchant book and a broader mix of acceptance methods than it has assembled on its own.
PayTabs has spent more than a decade assembling licences, bank connections and proprietary technology, often with less public attention than better-known regional fintechs.
Founded in 2014 and led by Abdulaziz Fahad Al-Jouf, the company has built processing, switching and payout capabilities on a single stack and has used acquisitions to fill gaps.
Recent deals include full control of its Egyptian joint venture, the purchase of Saudi point-of-sale firm Digital Pay, the buyout of Turkey’s social-commerce platform Paymes, and the April 2026 takeover of UAE contactless specialist TAPn’GO.
The Amazon transaction is the largest step yet in that sequence and would bring the group’s quietly assembled infrastructure into much sharper view.
Scale is the clearest immediate prize. The companies say the combined operation is expected to handle more than SAR 150 billion in annual payment volume, or roughly $40 billion.
That concentration would matter in a market still split among local acquirers, global card processors and marketplace-linked payment arms.
A single platform covering processing, automated switching and payouts could reduce the number of intermediaries merchants must manage and, if integration goes as planned, shorten onboarding while tightening local compliance.
Both sides have stressed continuity: existing Amazon Payment Services clients should see limited disruption while systems and licences are aligned.
The deal also reflects a broader shift in how global platforms treat regional payment assets.
Amazon built a payments capability to support its marketplace and third-party sellers; selling the MENA unit allows it to exit a capital-intensive, licence-heavy activity while leaving a local specialist to run the rails.
For PayTabs, whose backers include Saudi Aramco’s Wa’ed Ventures, the purchase is a bet that regional ownership of end-to-end infrastructure will matter more as digital commerce, instant payments and regulated local schemes keep expanding.
Closing details and regulatory timelines have not been fully disclosed.
If completed as described, however, the transaction would mark one of the more consequential consolidations in MENA payments in recent years—pairing Amazon’s merchant relationships with a homegrown processor that has spent years preparing the licences and technology to absorb them.