Thawani Pay Becomes First Omani Fintech to Secure Visa Licence for Credit Card Issuance

Thawani Pay has secured a Visa licence for credit card issuance, becoming the first Omani fintech to receive authorisation to issue credit cards and marking a landmark milestone for the Sultanate's fintech sector.

The licence enables Thawani to offer seamless in-app credit card onboarding and management, significantly expanding its product suite beyond its existing digital payment capabilities. Customers will be able to apply for and manage Visa credit cards directly within the Thawani app, combining payment acceptance and card issuance on a single platform.

Thawani Pay, regulated by the Central Bank of Oman, has established itself as one of the country's leading fintech companies with its digital payment acceptance platform used by thousands of merchants. The credit card licence transforms the company from a payment facilitator into a card issuer, a significant expansion of its role in the financial services value chain.

The milestone demonstrates the maturation of Oman's fintech sector, which has been developing rapidly with regulatory support from the Central Bank. The CBO's willingness to grant a credit card issuance licence to a fintech company signals confidence in the sector's capability to handle regulated financial products.

The Visa licence provides Thawani's credit cards with global acceptance across Visa's merchant network, ensuring that cardholders can use their cards internationally as well as domestically. Thawani said it is working with payment processing partners to build the technical infrastructure for card issuance and transaction processing.