UAE: Visa Platform Now Accepts Jaywan National Cards for Online Payments
Shoppers in the United Arab Emirates who carry a Jaywan card, the country’s own national card scheme, now have more places to use it online. Visa said on 6 November that its Visa Acceptance Platform, the online payment system used by many merchants and payment providers, can now process eligible Jaywan cards for e-commerce in the UAE.
The move matters because a home-grown card is only as useful as the number of checkouts that accept it, and global card networks still run much of the UAE’s online acceptance.
Key facts
- Eligible Jaywan debit, credit and prepaid cards can now be used for online transactions in the UAE through the Visa Acceptance Platform.
- Participating merchants, acquirers and payment service providers on the platform can add Jaywan as a payment option at checkout.
- The service supports card-on-file, recurring and digital wallet payments, with Jaywan cards on file protected by Visa’s Token Management Service.
- Jaywan is run by Al Etihad Payments, a subsidiary of the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE). The scheme officially launched in July 2026.
What Jaywan is, and why Visa is involved
Jaywan is the UAE’s first domestic card scheme. Like national schemes elsewhere, it lets local card payments be processed and settled inside the country rather than over an international network. The stated aims are to localise card payments, reduce transaction costs and strengthen the UAE’s position as a payments hub.
That does not mean the scheme is walking away from the global networks. In March 2025, Al Etihad Payments and Visa agreed to introduce co-badged “Jaywan-Visa” debit and prepaid cards, which work on the Jaywan rails at home and on Visa’s network abroad. Similar co-badging deals exist with Mastercard, UnionPay and Discover. Visa now adds a second role: helping merchants accept Jaywan cards online.
Visa’s platform is not the first online route. Network International switched on Jaywan for online payments through its gateway in July 2026, and payment firms Telr and Checkout.com have also integrated the scheme. Each new gateway shrinks the list of online shops where a Jaywan cardholder is turned away.
Andrea Cianchetti, Chief Products Officer at Al Etihad Payments, said Jaywan is “now accepted through the Visa Acceptance Platform”. Visa’s regional general manager for the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar, Fadi Moukaddem, said the step was about “helping expand payment choice”.
Why it matters
For a new card scheme, online acceptance is often the hardest gap to close. In-store terminals can be updated by a few large acquirers, but e-commerce is spread across thousands of merchants using many different gateways. Getting into a platform used by a global network brings a large group of online merchants within reach at once.
Support for card-on-file (saved card details) and recurring payments is also important. Subscriptions, utility bills and ride-hailing apps rely on stored cards. Tokenisation replaces the real card number with a digital stand-in, which lowers the risk if a merchant’s stored data is ever exposed.
For the wider region, the UAE is following a path taken by other countries that built domestic schemes to keep everyday card payments local, while co-badging with global networks for travel and cross-border shopping. Malaysia’s own domestic debit network, MyDebit, run by national payments operator PayNet, is one example of that model in Southeast Asia.
What to watch
- How quickly large UAE online merchants actually switch Jaywan on at checkout through the Visa platform.
- Whether Al Etihad Payments shares usage figures showing how much online spending moves onto Jaywan rails.
- More tie-ups linking Jaywan to transport, wallets and overseas acceptance, such as Dubai’s nol–Jaywan card pilot.
Related on FinDeskAsia: How payment gateways work in Malaysia · How Malaysia’s payment system works
Sources: TechAfrica News (November 2026); Gulf News (August 2026); Siasat (July 2026)
