What is
an RPS Licence?
A Retail Payment Services (RPS) licence is the authorisation issued by the Central Bank of the UAE under the Retail Payment Services and Card Schemes Regulation. It is required to perform retail payment services in the onshore UAE — merchant acquiring, payment aggregation, money transfer, payment initiation and account information services — with licence categories scaled to which services are performed and whether customer funds are held.
Who needs an RPS licence?
Any business performing payment services in the onshore UAE market: payment gateways that touch the money flow, acquirers, aggregators, remittance businesses and payment-initiation fintechs. Pure technology providers that never control funds may sit outside the perimeter — but most commercial models touch funds somewhere, and the category analysis is where applications are won or lost.
How does it differ from an SVF licence?
RPS covers performing payment services; the separate Stored Value Facility licence covers issuing stored value — wallets and prepaid balances. A wallet business often needs SVF, a processor needs RPS, and some models need both.
How long does a CBUAE RPS licence take?
A well-prepared application typically runs nine to eighteen months from engagement to licence, through the regulatory business plan, ownership and governance review, safeguarding arrangements, AML framework and CBUAE review rounds. Preparation quality is the biggest driver of timeline.
How much capital does an RPS licence require?
Capital scales with the licence category and the volume of customer funds held — from hundreds of thousands of dirhams for lighter categories to several million for full-scope providers, plus ongoing safeguarding and prudential requirements. The regulator also expects real compliance staffing, not just paid-up capital.
Does a crypto payment gateway need an RPS licence?
Often alongside virtual-asset authorisation. Accepting crypto from payers and settling fiat to merchants combines VARA-regulated virtual-asset activity with CBUAE-regulated payment services, and stablecoin models engage the CBUAE Payment Token Services framework. The split depends on custody, conversion and settlement design.
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