Tabby has become one of the clearest examples of how rapidly a Middle Eastern fintech can evolve from a focused payments product into a large-scale financial-services platform.
Founded by Hosam Arab, Chief Executive Officer, and Daniil Barkalov, Chief Operating Officer, Tabby initially became synonymous with buy now, pay later. By 2026, however, that description no longer captures the breadth—or ambition—of the company.
Tabby now serves approximately 25 million registered users and 70,000 business partners while processing more than $18 billion in annualised transaction volume. Perhaps more significantly for a growth-stage fintech, the company says it has been profitable since 2023.
Its September 2026 funding round underscored the scale it has achieved. Tabby raised $233 million at a valuation of $6.5 billion, with Blue Pool Capital leading the round alongside existing shareholders including HSG, Wellington Management and Arbor Ventures. The valuation places Tabby firmly among the region's most valuable private technology businesses.
Arab's strategy increasingly centres on extending the customer relationship beyond instalment payments. In Saudi Arabia, Tabby secured consumer-finance and SME-finance licences from the Saudi Central Bank in June 2026, enabling longer-term financing on larger purchases and working-capital solutions for businesses. In the UAE, a Stored Value Facilities licence from the Central Bank allows Tabby to hold customer funds and offer accounts, cards and money-management products.
Tabby Cash illustrates that progression. The company is now building spending-account functionality alongside the credit products that first drove adoption.
Strategically, the transition is important. BNPL gave Tabby a powerful distribution engine, large transaction volumes and detailed insight into purchasing behaviour. The next stage is about converting that engagement into a broader financial relationship encompassing spending, credit, saving and money management.
Arab has therefore moved Tabby into territory historically occupied by banks, while retaining the design language and customer experience of a technology company.
Its future challenge will be balancing rapid product expansion with credit quality, regulation and consumer trust. But the scale achieved by 2026 makes Tabby impossible to view simply as a BNPL provider.
It is increasingly becoming one of the GCC's most important consumer-finance platforms; and one of the companies most likely to influence how the region's next generation manages money.