Payment Gateways in the UAE
I have recently come across the necessity to implement a payment system to an existing web site. The easiest way would probably be to use Stripe, but unfortunately this is not available here in the UAE.
However, there are a lot of alternatives. I have compiled a small overview over the current ecosystem. The largest payment provider Network is not listed, as they do not have any prices on their web site and also rather cater to the larger businesses.
| Provider | Setup Fee | Monthly Fee | Transaction Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Payfort | 0 | 0 | AED 1.00 + 3.00 % |
| CCAvenue | 0 | AED 200 | AED 1.00 + 3.00 % |
| checkout.com | 0 | 0 | AED 0.75 + 2.75% |
| Telr | 0 | AED 349 | 0 |
| PayPal | 0 | 0 | USD 0.30 + 2.90% |
This list is by no means exhaustive, just the ones I found with a bit of research.
I have always considered the smallest available plan. These are suitable for smaller transaction volumes (up to 20kAED / month), with larger volumes there are different plans available.
All of these bring their own SDK or integration solution, however the quality and the amount of plugins might vary. In general it is safe to say that every provider offers a "web checkout" solution as developers are used from PayPal for years, and a WordPress plugin. The next step of evaluation is to have a glimpse into their code and try to set up an example flow for a single checkout and a monthly subscription model.
A very interesting link I found for this topic is https://blog.jadopado.com/the-2016-edition-online-payments-in-the-uae/. Please do make an exception and read the comments, as they are insightful!
UPDATE: As jadopado got acquired by noon, the mentioned post can now be found here: https://blog.esanjo.com/the-2016-edition-online-payments-in-the-uae-76aeccbdc922