Invisible Giant
Two in three Gulf adults are registered.
The Global South does not wait for the credit card. It builds the installment straight into the checkout.
When the credit card never arrives, consumer finance has to be built another way.
Across the Gulf most shoppers never held one, and many wanted nothing to do with interest-based lending. In Riyadh and Dubai in 2019, Hosam Arab built Tabby to split a purchase into interest-free payments at the checkout - no card, no paperwork. Two in three adults in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are now registered, across some 65,000 brands and small businesses.
The decision that mattered: put the installment at the point of sale, not behind a bank application.
The Global South builds consumer credit straight into the checkout the region already uses.
Source: Tabby, 2024-2025.