Point-of-sale systems across the GCC are quietly evolving from transaction tools into something far more powerful: financial platforms. What began as software for payments and inventory is now expanding into lending, cash-flow management, and embedded finance, placing credit decisions closer than ever to the daily operations of small businesses.

For merchants, the shift is already visible. When restaurant owners check their point-of-sale dashboard in the morning, they are no longer just looking at yesterday’s sales. They get a bigger picture of their overall business health.

How many customers came in? What were the busiest hours? Which products sold fastest? Are sales stable enough to hire more staff, open another branch, or invest in new equipment?

For many POS providers in the GCC, this data is now the base for a bigger business. POS platforms becoming lenders is becoming a bigger part of that shift as platforms that used to focus on payments, inventory, and orders are adding financial services such as lending, cash advances, expense tools, and other financial products directly into their systems.

This is happening at a time when recent data suggests the markets for SME lending and digital finance are growing rapidly across both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. 

In Saudi Arabia, SME credit rose 22.6% year-on-year to SR329.2 billion ($87.7 billion) by the third quarter of 2024, while the share of SME lending in total bank loans reached 9.1%, according to Saudi Central Bank data (SAMA).

In the UAE, the SME digital lending market is already valued at around $1.5 billion, driven by rising demand for faster and more accessible financing solutions.

According to Deloitte, SMEs account for more than 90% of businesses in the GCC, yet remain significantly underserved by traditional financial institutions. Many still face long approval processes, heavy paperwork requirements, and limited access to formal credit.

This gap is giving new fintech-powered POS companies a chance to step in.

“On the merchant side, it’s about simplicity,” says Ahmad AlZaini, CEO and Co-Founder of Foodics. “A unified ecosystem solves the system fragmentation challenge and allows merchants to manage decisions, transactions, and insights in one place, removing friction and saving time.”

AlZaini adds that the bigger opportunity lies in turning live business information into smarter decision-making. “It’s no longer just about processing payments. It’s about enabling faster, more informed business decisions.”

POS SYSTEMS BECOMING FINANCIAL TOOLS

As POS systems become the main entry point for financial services, this shift seems natural. POS platforms are already central to a merchant’s daily operations. They can track sales in real time, understand customer behavior, notice seasonal trends, and spot cash-flow issues before they become serious.

This gives them an advantage that traditional lenders often lack. POS platforms becoming lenders works because these systems already have access to the real-time business data banks often do not. POS platforms becoming lenders works because these systems already have access to the real-time business data banks often do not.

“Businesses, especially in F&B, no longer want just a payment terminal. They want a business operating system,” says Görkem Köseoğlu, Group Chief Customer and AI Officer at Network International. 

He says restaurant owners increasingly want to manage everything from reservations and loyalty campaigns to staff performance and repeat-customer offers from a single screen. 

That is also why companies focused on payments and checkout are looking more closely at what POS data can show.

“Transaction and merchant data give a much more current view of how a business is actually performing,” says Zarik Nabi, Chief Commercial Officer at Tabby. 

“It helps you understand sales consistency, seasonality, customer demand, and cash-flow patterns in a way traditional underwriting often misses.”

He says that allows fintech companies to build products around “the real rhythm of a business,” rather than relying solely on collateral, paperwork, or old financial statements.

This is especially important in the restaurant industry, where cash flow can fluctuate significantly from week to week. A café might do well during Ramadan, weekends, or winter, but struggle during slower times. A traditional bank that only looks at yearly financial statements might miss these details.

A POS platform, however, can see these changes as they happen.

THE PERFECT TEST CASE

F&B businesses are among the most cash-sensitive businesses in the region.

Margins are often thin. Supplier payments come quickly. Staffing costs remain fixed. Demand can fluctuate based on weather, holidays, tourism patterns, or social media trends.

That means access to quick financing can be the difference between expanding and surviving.

According to Roland Berger, embedded finance in the GCC could become a major growth market over the next few years, particularly in sectors that require fast, flexible access to working capital. 

Restaurant platforms are particularly well-positioned because they already have direct access to operational data and frequent customer interaction.

AlZaini says that many restaurant owners do not realize how much they need financing until the pressure becomes urgent.

“The businesses we serve rely heavily on their cash runway, and often have long cash cycles,” he says. “They might not realize how much they need cash until it is too late.”

That is why Foodics built a credit-scoring model based on live business performance rather than solely on historical data.

“Sales velocity, transaction patterns, peak hours, and customer behavior all contribute to a much more accurate picture of financial health,” AlZaini says. “In many ways, the business performance itself becomes the credit score.”

Köseoğlu says this level of visibility can help lenders spot business trends much earlier than banks. 

“When a restaurant’s Friday night covers drop 20% over six consecutive weeks, we see it before the owner’s bank does,” he says. “When a new delivery channel starts contributing 30% of revenue, we see that too.”
Köseoğlu adds that this kind of detail can speed up and improve the accuracy of credit decisions.

According to Deloitte, the SME funding gap across the GCC remains around $250 billion. While banks continue to play a central role, the report notes that alternative lenders, fintechs, and embedded finance providers will become increasingly important in narrowing that gap.

“Non-traditional lending institutions have a huge opportunity to tap into this pool,” says AlZaini.”With their ability to rely on live, relevant business performance data, coupled with the volume of deployable cash offered by POS companies, companies like ours can offer a lifeline to SMEs that are the backbone of any economy.”

THE LIMITS OF DATA

Still, transaction data such as daily sales, customer spending, peak hours, repeat visits, refunds, and payment patterns is not a magic solution.

One of the biggest risks in using POS and payment data to make lending decisions is assuming they tell the full story.

“The biggest risk is treating transaction data as the full picture when it’s only one signal. It’s backward-looking and doesn’t capture things like growth investments, shifts in demand, or broader category trends,” says Nabi.

On top of that, he adds, sales can be seasonal or campaign-driven, which can distort a business’s true health. “The real value comes from combining transaction data with wider context, not relying on it in isolation.”

AlZaini says transaction data provides “a strong, continuous signal of a business’s health.” “Its cash flow is effectively its heartbeat.”

But he adds that external shocks, from economic downturns to regulatory changes or another pandemic-like disruption, can still affect even strong businesses.

“While these risks can’t be eliminated, robust data models can still provide a high degree of confidence in most lending scenarios,” he says.

That balance between speed and risk will become increasingly important as more POS companies move into financial services.

Offering loans or cash advances is very different from selling software subscriptions. It raises questions about defaults, collections, underwriting standards, and responsible lending.

Köseoğlu says one of the biggest blind spots is that transaction data captures revenue, but not necessarily profitability. 

“A restaurant doing AED100,000 a month may still be losing money,” he says, adding that merchants who rely heavily on cash payments can also give lenders an incomplete picture of business performance.

It also raises concerns about how much control POS providers should have over merchant data and whether businesses fully understand how their information is used.

REGULATION IS MOVING FASTER 

One reason this model is gaining momentum is that regulators across the GCC are becoming more comfortable with fintech.

The UAE and Saudi Arabia have introduced regulatory sandboxes, digital banking frameworks, open finance initiatives, and new licensing models to support fintech growth.

“Regulators are increasingly recognizing that these categories are converging,” says Nabi. “They’re responding with greater focus on licensing, transparency, and customer protection.”

He says the direction in markets like the UAE and Saudi Arabia is clearly moving toward more defined frameworks around how financial products are distributed, marketed, and underwritten.

“At their core, regulators want to protect consumers, support business growth, and ensure market stability,” AlZaini says. “The frameworks being developed are designed to encourage innovation while maintaining clear standards.”

He adds that regulators across the region are providing “structured, transparent guidelines” to allow companies to build and scale responsibly.

Köseoğlu says regulators in the UAE have been selective but supportive. He points to the UAE Central Bank’s Financial Infrastructure Transformation Programme and the rollout of Open Finance as important building blocks for POS-led lending. 

“That infrastructure is what will make data-driven lending at the POS possible at scale,” he says.

TRUST IS THE REAL PRODUCT

Restaurants might trust their POS provider to handle orders and payments, but trusting the same company with loans, financing, or cash-flow tools is a different matter.

For many merchants, the decision often comes down to familiarity.

“We are not a quarterly statement from a bank. We are the system they open every morning,” Köseoğlu says. He also points to a 2023 BCG study which found that 64% of SMEs are interested in financial services integrated into platforms they already use, even though less than 5% currently source financial products that way.

“Yes, if the product is relevant, simple to understand, and comes from a platform they already know and use,” says Nabi.

AlZaini says not every POS company will automatically earn that trust.

“Financial products are an extension of an existing relationship, not a starting point,” he says.

“Maintaining that trust requires transparency, accessibility, and continuously listening to customer needs,” he adds.

THE FUTURE IS PARTNERSHIP, NOT REPLACEMENT

For now, few believe POS providers will fully replace banks that have deeper balance sheets, stronger regulatory infrastructure, and decades of experience in risk management.

That is why many industry players believe partnerships will matter more than competition.

Köseoğlu says Network International has no interest in becoming a bank. “We bring the merchant relationship and the data intelligence, while bank partners bring the capital and the license,” he says. “The merchant gets a faster, smarter product than either party could deliver alone.”

But fintech companies and POS providers have something banks often do not: they are closer to the customer.

“It’s less about competition and more about complementary strengths,” says AlZaini. “Traditional financial institutions bring expertise in risk management, regulation, and capital allocation. POS platforms bring real-time data, operational context, and proximity to the customer.”

Nabi believes the distinction between banks and fintech companies will become less meaningful over time.

“The line between the two is already blurring,” he says. “Banks are becoming more like tech companies, and the best fintechs are taking on activities that used to sit exclusively with banks.”

He says the real question is not whether banks or fintechs win.

“What matters to customers is whether the product actually works for them,” he says.