The Middle East and North Africa has undergone a quiet but significant transformation in payment infrastructure over the past three years. Every GCC member state now operates or is building a domestic instant payment rail, and two regional platforms - AFAQ and Buna - are connecting them across borders. For payment architects, treasury teams, and fintech operators evaluating the region, understanding this landscape is essential.

Domestic Instant Payment Systems

Saudi Arabia - SARIE

SARIE (Saudi Arabia Riyal Interbank Express) launched in February 2021 under SAMA's Vision 2030 payments programme. Operated by Saudi Payments (a SAMA subsidiary), it processes real-time domestic transfers 24/7 in SAR.

Scale: 593 million transactions worth SAR 2.5 trillion in 2024, representing a 50% compound annual growth rate in volumes since launch. E-payments now account for 79% of Saudi retail transactions.

Key features: Mobile number as proxy identifier, instant transfers up to SAR 20,000 per transaction (SAR 2,500 without beneficiary registration), and integration with the mada debit scheme for merchant payments.

What practitioners should know: SARIE is the fastest-growing instant payment system in the GCC by volume. Its proxy-based addressing and integration with mada make it a functional A2A payment platform, not just a credit transfer rail.

UAE - Aani

The CBUAE launched Aani in October 2023, developed by subsidiary Al Etihad Payments under the Financial Infrastructure Transformation (FIT) programme. Aani enables instant payments in AED between domestic bank accounts.

Scale: 1.5 million registered users across 57 financial institutions as of November 2025, with cross-border corridors to India's UPI now in development via IRP Gateway.

Key features: Proxy addressing (mobile, email, Emirates ID), request-to-pay, QR code payments, and a maximum transaction limit of AED 50,000.

What practitioners should know: Aani is newer than its GCC peers but has the most ambitious cross-border agenda. The planned UPI interlinking would give the UAE direct access to India's 350+ million UPI users - significant given India is the UAE's largest remittance corridor.

Bahrain - Fawri+

Bahrain was an early mover in GCC instant payments. Fawri+ is operated by BENEFIT (the national payment system operator) and enables real-time BHD transfers.

Key features: 24/7 availability, mobile number proxy, and integration with Bahrain's BenefitPay mobile wallet. Bahrain was also the first GCC market to go live on AFAQ alongside Saudi Arabia in December 2021.

Qatar - Fawran

The Qatar Central Bank launched Fawran in March 2024 - the newest GCC domestic instant payment rail. All eight major Qatari banks are connected.

Scale: 5.5 million transactions worth QAR 10.1 billion in the first 14 months. 2.7 million individual accounts and 99,000 corporate accounts registered by April 2025. Volume growing at 31% month-on-month.

Key features: Mobile number proxy, request-to-pay capability (added July 2024), transaction limits from QAR 5,000 to QAR 400,000 depending on tier.

Kuwait - WAMD

Launched by the Central Bank of Kuwait in partnership with KNET, WAMD surpassed one million accounts by October 2025. It enables instant KWD transfers using mobile number as proxy.

Oman

The Central Bank of Oman operates its own instant payment capabilities and recently joined the GCC AFAQ system.

Regional Cross-Border Platforms

AFAQ

AFAQ (Arabian Gulf System for Financial Automated Quick Payment Transfer) is the GCC's cross-border real-time gross settlement system. Designed to enable instant cross-currency transfers between GCC member states.

Timeline: Saudi Arabia and Bahrain went live in December 2021. Kuwait joined in March 2022, the UAE in December 2023. By November 2024, 57 banks had enrolled.

Currencies: Six GCC currencies - SAR, BHD, KWD, AED, OMR, QAR.

What practitioners should know: AFAQ is the most advanced cross-border instant payment platform in the MENA region. Unlike Buna (which serves the broader Arab region), AFAQ is specifically optimised for GCC-to-GCC transfers with direct central bank backing from all six member states.

Buna

Operated by the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), Buna is the broader Arab region's cross-border payment platform. It connects over 100 participating financial institutions and supports multiple currencies including USD, EUR, and major Arab currencies.

Key milestone: In October 2025, Buna went live with Pakistan's Raast for PKR cross-border payments, extending the platform beyond the Arab region for the first time.

What practitioners should know: Buna is designed for the wider Arab region (22 countries) and key trading partners. It complements rather than competes with AFAQ. A treasury team operating across the GCC would use AFAQ for intra-GCC transfers and Buna for flows to Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and other connected markets.

The Interlinking Gaps

Despite rapid domestic buildout, several gaps remain:

  1. No single interoperable GCC retail instant payment layer: Each country's domestic system (SARIE, Aani, Fawri+, Fawran, WAMD) operates independently. A consumer in Saudi Arabia cannot send an instant payment to a retail recipient in the UAE using domestic rails. AFAQ serves interbank settlement, not retail instant payments.

  2. Limited non-GCC connectivity: Outside the Buna-Raast link and the planned Aani-UPI corridor, MENA instant payment systems have no interlinking with Asian, European, or African instant payment networks. Contrast this with Southeast Asia, where bilateral QR payment corridors now connect Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, and Japan.

  3. ISO 20022 adoption varies: Saudi Arabia's SARIE is built natively on ISO 20022. Other systems vary in their messaging standard maturity, which creates friction for future interlinking.

  4. Egypt's InstaPay operates separately: Egypt's Central Bank has built InstaPay (16 million users as of late 2025), but it is not yet connected to either AFAQ or Buna for cross-border flows.

What's Next

The trajectory is clear: the MENA region is building the domestic rails first and will interlink them second. The key developments to watch in 2026-2027:

Aani-UPI corridor going live, establishing the first MENA-South Asia retail instant payment link Oman and Qatar completing AFAQ onboarding for full six-member GCC coverage Buna expanding beyond the Arab region to additional Asian and African corridors SAMA completing the next phase of SARIE with merchant instant payment capabilities

For payment infrastructure teams building MENA connectivity, the implication is that you need separate integrations to each domestic rail today - but should architect for future interlinking via AFAQ and Buna.

Sources: SAMA - National Payments Usage Study; SAMA Rulebook - Instant Payments Launch (SARIE); QCB - Fawran Launch Announcement (February 2024); The Peninsula Qatar - Fawran Facilitates Over 5mn Transactions (April 2025); ECB - Norway Joins TIPS (November 2024); Arab News - E-payments Account for 79% of Saudi Retail Transactions (2024); Barclays - GCC New Payment System Could Drive Treasury Transformation.