Mastercard and Tamatem Target Wider Gaming Payments Access Across MENA

Mastercard and Middle East mobile games publisher Tamatem have agreed to expand payment capabilities for gamers across the Middle East and Africa, with the companies initially focusing on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Under the arrangement, Mastercard Gateway will become the payment gateway supporting Tamatem Plus, the publisher’s digital commerce and payment platform.

Through the integration, Tamatem Plus will be able to offer card payments alongside locally used alternatives, including telecom-linked payment options. Authentication and risk-management capabilities will also form part of the payment infrastructure. Mastercard describes Mastercard Gateway as an online payment gateway for merchants and financial institutions, providing access to global and local payment methods alongside security and transaction-management tools.

Rather than creating a new consumer gaming platform, the partnership strengthens the payment infrastructure behind an existing one. Tamatem launched Tamatem Plus in 2023 as a payment and distribution service designed to give international game developers access to payment methods commonly used across the region. Its options have included cards, electronic wallets, direct carrier billing and cash-based payment channels. The platform is intended to reduce payment fragmentation, which can complicate monetization for game publishers entering Arabic-speaking markets.

Payment habits can differ considerably from one market to another, making a single checkout model difficult to apply across the region. A player in Saudi Arabia, for example, may expect different locally supported methods from a player in Jordan or Egypt. Tamatem has consequently built its payments strategy around localized storefronts and integrations rather than relying exclusively on internationally issued payment cards. The latest announcement says Tamatem Plus supports more than 30 localized storefronts and more than 50 local payment methods through its infrastructure.

Earlier partnerships illustrate how that approach has developed. In Egypt, Tamatem Plus worked with Fawry to support card transactions as well as cash payments through Fawry’s retail network. Fawryt said users could pay with Mastercard, Visa and Meeza cards or obtain a reference code and complete payment in cash through participating locations. The arrangement showed how Tamatem has previously adapted checkout options around domestic payment behavior instead of applying the same payment mix to every market.

Tamatem has pursued similar integrations elsewhere. Jordan Kuwait Bank announced in February 2026 that its JKBPay service, powered by Jordan’s CliQ instant-payment system, would become available through Tamatem Plus. Earlier, Tamatem also partnered with Tap Payments to add Gulf-focused options including mada and KNET alongside digital wallets and international card networks. Those agreements provide context for the Mastercard deal: the new infrastructure is joining a platform that has been building country-specific payment connections for several years rather than replacing the concept of localized payments.

Publishers are another part of the arrangement. Tamatem Plus operates web-based storefronts that allow gaming companies to sell digital content outside the conventional app-store checkout environment. With Mastercard Gateway supporting the payment layer, the companies say publishers using the platform will be able to manage localized purchasing experiences while giving players a broader selection of ways to pay. The first deployments in Saudi Arabia and the UAE place two of the Gulf’s largest digital consumer markets at the beginning of the rollout.

Mastercard has been expanding the same gateway infrastructure across other parts of regional digital commerce. In September, the company announced that noon payments would use Mastercard Gateway to enable online acceptance of Jaywan, the UAE’s domestic card scheme. Mastercard said Gateway is available through Merchant Cloud, its unified acceptance platform combining payment connectivity with services including authentication, risk protection and tokenization. A separate Mastercard collaboration with MoneyHash announced in December 2025 also gave merchants in the Middle East and Africa access to Gateway through a payment-orchestration platform.

Tamatem, meanwhile, has been moving beyond its original role as an Arabic-language mobile game publisher. Its payments business has increasingly focused on solving the operational side of selling games and virtual goods across markets with different currencies, payment providers and consumer preferences. The Mastercard agreement extends that strategy by placing a larger international payments network underneath Tamatem Plus while retaining the platform’s emphasis on local checkout methods.