PayTabs to acquire Amazon Payment Services’ Middle East operations for more than $100 million
The deal would fold Amazon’s regional payments arm into PayTabs, creating a combined entity the companies project will process over $40 billion in annual payment volume across the MENA region.
PayTabs Group, a Saudi Arabia-based payments processor, has agreed to acquire the Middle East and North Africa operations of Amazon Payment Services for more than $100 million, a deal the companies said is intended to consolidate a regional payments market that has remained fragmented across multiple national processors and regulatory regimes.
Amazon Payment Services is the payments-processing arm Amazon operates across the MENA region, distinct from Amazon's e-commerce marketplace itself — it provides the underlying transaction infrastructure merchants use to accept payments online, a business Amazon built up under its Souq.com-era regional operations before rebranding it. Folding that infrastructure into PayTabs combines two processors that have each built out separate merchant relationships, banking partnerships and licensing across MENA markets.
The companies said the combined entity is projected to process more than $40 billion (roughly SAR 150 billion) in annual payment volume once the deal closes, which they said would make it the largest payments processor in the region by that measure. Both companies have approved the transaction, though it remains subject to the regulatory approvals typical of a cross-border financial-services acquisition of this size.
For Amazon, the sale narrows its footprint in MENA payments infrastructure to a commercial relationship with PayTabs rather than an owned processing business — a shift consistent with a broader pattern of large technology companies divesting payments infrastructure they built in-house in favor of partnering with specialized processors. For PayTabs, the acquisition is a direct scale play: absorbing a competitor's merchant base and transaction volume rather than growing it independently.
Neither company disclosed the exact final purchase price beyond the "more than $100 million" figure, nor a specific expected closing date, at the time of the announcement on September 7.