What happened
On 20 October 2026 the Central Bank of the UAE issued two no-objection letters to Mawarid Finance and the fintech platform Liabify. The first clears a partnership on financing for employees of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) through their employer. The second clears the issuance of prepaid cards used to deliver that financing. In practice this is a green light for LiaPay: a prepaid Platinum Mastercard and an app in which an employee can access part of their already-earned, not-yet-paid salary — the Earned Wage Access (EWA) model.
Caps and pricing have not been disclosed yet — the regulator has approved the construct, and commercial detail will follow. Still, this is a notable milestone: one of the first clear regulatory paths in the UAE for an EWA scheme where financing is routed through an employer and through a licensed, Sharia-compliant lender.
What the regulator actually approved
The Mawarid × Liabify partnership was announced back on 9 March 2026 at the Mawarid FinTech & Innovation Summit at Grand Hyatt Dubai, but the commercial launch had been paused pending separate CBUAE approvals — without them neither the MSME financing nor the prepaid-card issuance in this setup could proceed. Both have now been granted:
- No-objection #1 — MSME financing. Mawarid Finance is cleared to provide, through Liabify, a payroll-linked financing scheme: an employee draws part of their earned pay in advance, and the employer settles it on the regular payroll date.
- No-objection #2 — prepaid cards. Mawarid Finance, as issuer, can roll out LiaPay-branded Platinum Mastercards that receive EWA funds. Employer clients on the platform can offer EWA and other suitable financing to their staff.
According to the parties, both approvals come with CBUAE expectations on consumer protection, responsible lending and Sharia compliance — the standard Mawarid Finance already operates under.
How LiaPay works
From the user side the flow is straightforward. An SME employer signs up with Liabify and onboards its staff. Through the LiaPay app an employee sees how much salary they have already earned by any given day of the month, and can move part of it to a prepaid Platinum Mastercard. The card runs on the normal Mastercard network — in-store and online purchases, transfers, instant payments. On payday the employer settles the funded portion, and the remainder of the salary is paid as usual.
The core idea is not credit in the classic sense but a shift in the timing of already-earned pay. That is what keeps the setup inside the Sharia framework for Mawarid Finance and inside the regulator's perimeter, and lets Liabify position LiaPay as a financial wellness tool rather than a loan product. Dr Allan Villegas, co-founder and CEO of Liabify, puts the goal plainly: "Together with Mawarid Finance, we aim to help MSMEs support their employees through responsible access to liquidity."
What this means for UAE SMEs
For our client base — UAE SME founders and owners who hire employees in the UAE and design compensation packages — the CBUAE clearance opens three practical angles:
- A benefit that doesn't inflate payroll. EWA via Mawarid × Liabify adds an option to the comp pack without increasing monthly salary obligations — the employer still settles on the same payday.
- Lower financial stress on the team. For middle-income UAE staff — the heart of most SMEs — the gap between paychecks is a common trigger for expensive consumer loans, late rent, or quits in search of advances. EWA removes exactly that gap.
- Regulatory cleanliness. Because the financing runs through a licensed issuer (Mawarid Finance) under a CBUAE no-objection and in a Sharia-compliant wrapper, the employer doesn't need to build a compliance layer. It signs a corporate agreement with Liabify and plugs staff in through HR.
The product also fits into the wider shift in UAE payment rails — rising card and instant-payment share, and the national card stack built around Jaywan, the UAE national payment card. LiaPay rides the Mastercard network but launches in the same regulatory frame in which the CBUAE formats "card plus app" as the default daily-finance tool.
What is still open
Four things an SME employer will want to clarify at onboarding have not yet been publicly disclosed:
- The maximum share of already-earned salary an employee can draw before the official payday.
- Pricing to the employer (platform fee, HR/payroll integration setup) and to the employee (if any portion of EWA is paid).
- A hard commercial launch date for open onboarding — the current milestone is regulatory readiness, not a mass rollout.
- Which SME verticals and sizes come first — Mawarid Finance has historically focused on UAE SME clients; Liabify (Dubai Founders HQ) leans digital-first.
Those parameters will be disclosed by Mawarid Finance and Liabify as rollout progresses. The fact of the no-objections, though, is itself a signal: the UAE is building a dedicated regulatory lane for EWA products inside the SME perimeter, rather than leaving them in a grey zone between consumer credit and salary itself.
What an employer should do now
If your UAE business is a classic SME with staff on local salaries, a sensible plan is: first, ask Liabify for the terms of corporate onboarding once pilot slots open; second, tidy up payroll — WPS postings and the pay-cycle calendar, as LiaPay will sync to them; third, review your benefits policy so EWA fits in cleanly next to any existing employer loans, loyalty or bonus schemes.
Garant Business Consultancy supports SME HR and finance structuring in the UAE — from jurisdiction choice and WPS setup to selecting employee-benefit providers under both Sharia-compliant and conventional frames. On LiaPay and similar products, reach out — we will walk through where and when adoption makes sense for your team.
