Tarabut Gateway & Zain Bahrain announce region’s first Open Banking payments

Tarabut Gateway has partnered with Zain Bahrain to create the first use case of Open Banking payments within a telecom app in the area. This groundbreaking partnership marks the first time a regional telecommunications company has embraced Open Banking to support its payments.

Mohammed Al Alawi, Director, Business Planning & Analytics at Zain Bahrain said, “At Zain Bahrain, we continuously adopt new technologies to improve services for our customers. Through our alignment with Tarabut Gateway, bank-to-bank payments can now be made within our native app, which is a first-of-its-kind in the region.” He further added, “National Bank of Bahrain (NBB), ILA and Khaleeji Commercial Bank (KHBC) are currently live on the app and we will continue to further tie-up with banks and add them to the app in the future.”

Abdulla Almoayed, CEO and founder of Tarabut Gateway said, “Our partnership with Zain Bahrain provides telco users with a new, better way to pay. Open Banking allows a fast, easy, and secure method for payment and a seamless experience for customers. This collaboration ushers in a new era of partnership between Fintechs and telcos in the MENA region, setting groundbreaking and innovative industry standards. Through collaborations such as this, we aim to provide the most cost effective payment rails for merchants in the region, at significantly reduced fees compared to traditional payment networks and more secure than card payments.”

Zain Bahrain, a MENA telecoms sector innovation, has become the first telecommunications operator to accept Open Banking payments, cementing its status as one of the region’s leading telecom providers. The ability to accept bank-to-bank payments, in which funds are credited in real-time, avoiding long settlement periods; robust security through strong customer authentication processes (no card numbers are saved, reducing the risk of fraud); and reduced transactional fees or the risk of chargebacks for customer payments, as compared to card processing or payment gateways, are just a few of the advantages for Zain Bahrain.

Customers of Zain Bahrain benefit from Open Banking payments since they eliminate the need to enter debit or credit card information. Customers also benefit from the payment journey remaining within the Zain Bahrain app, making it faster, easier, and more enjoyable.