Mastercard in a Spree to Boost Cross-Border Payments in the UAE

Mastercard Incorporated MA and Worldpay recently teamed up to leverage Mastercard Move and enhance money movement for consumers and businesses in the UAE. As part of this partnership, Worldpay’s Push-to-Card solution will facilitate swift and seamless domestic and international card-based payouts. These include diverse use cases such as gig worker payments, insurance settlements, remittances and crypto withdrawals — all underpinned by Mastercard’s strong security framework and reliable infrastructure.

For consumers, this means faster access to their money, while businesses gain streamlined and more efficient payout capabilities, without the need to exchange banking details. Additionally, the solution enables Worldpay’s merchants to use their existing acquiring flows to fund disbursements, simplifying processes and minimizing dependence on multiple service providers.

A few days before the latest initiative, Mastercard and an UAE-based fintech Zand entered into a strategic partnership. Through the utilization of Mastercard Move’s money movement solutions, the collaboration will allow Zand to deliver secure, seamless and efficient international money transfer services to its customers.

Such initiatives reflect Mastercard’s sincere efforts to enhance cross-border payment capabilities across the UAE and accelerate the adoption of digital transactions nationwide. Mastercard Move empowers banks, non-bank financial institutions and their customers—including direct disbursers—with secure, near-instant money transfer solutions, both within countries and across borders. The suite of solutions covers more than 200 countries, supports 150+ currencies, and reaches more than 95% of the world’s banked population.

The increased usage of Mastercard Move is expected to boost its cross-border volumes, which advanced 15% on a local currency basis in the second quarter of 2025.

How are Competitors Faring?

Some of Mastercard’s competitors across the UAE include PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL and Visa Inc. V. 

PayPal boasts a significant presence in the UAE. This April, PYPL opened its first Middle East and Africa hub in Dubai, serving 80 countries. The site will boost cross-border commerce and empower businesses with AI-driven payments. Its cross-border total payment volume grew 10% year over year in the second quarter of 2025.

Visa operates in the UAE and functions as a payment network, facilitating transactions for various financial institutions and their customers within the country. V cards are widely accepted throughout the UAE for both retail purchases and online transactions. Visa’s cross-border volume improved 12% year over year in the third quarter of fiscal 2025.

Mastercard’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of Mastercard have gained 24.5% in the past year compared with the industry’s 19.3% growth. 

From a valuation standpoint, MA trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 32.44, above the industry average of 21.61.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Mastercard’s 2025 earnings implies a 11.7% rise from the year-ago period. The consensus mark for revenues indicates 15.1% year-over-year growth. 

MA currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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