Al Etihad Payments Picks Aref Al Ramli as Chief Executive
Aref Al Ramli takes over the central bank-owned payments company on 2 November, with adoption of Aani and Jaywan as his stated priority.
Al Etihad Payments has a new chief executive. Aref Al Ramli takes over the payments company, which is owned by the Central Bank of the UAE, on 2 November.
He brings more than 24 years in financial services to the job. His brief covers the build-out of the country's national payment infrastructure and the harder task of getting people and businesses to use the platforms AEP operates.
Al Ramli arrives from Al Hilal Bank, where he was chief digital officer. Before that he ran Emirates Digital Wallet as chief executive, leading a payments programme that drew in 16 banks and was built around financial inclusion and the shift away from cash. At Mashreq he headed digital banking and innovation and oversaw the introduction of Mashreq Neo and Mashreq NeoBiz. He chaired the UAE Banks Federation's digital committee between 2017 and 2020, work that put him alongside banks, the central bank and government bodies on digital projects.
The platforms he inherits are already large. AEP said Aani, its instant payment service, had 14.7 million enrolled users in 2026 and carried more than 192 million transactions worth AED 545 billion. Jaywan cards began reaching customers through financial institutions across the UAE earlier this year. AEP has also struck partnerships with Mastercard and UnionPay International in support of the national infrastructure.
Adoption is where he intends to concentrate. "My ambition is for AEP's platforms to become a natural part of how people and businesses across the UAE pay every day," he said. "That requires reliable infrastructure, strong partnerships with financial institutions, and services that give customers a clear reason to use them."
My ambition is for AEP's platforms to become a natural part of how people and businesses across the UAE pay every day,
Part of the job will be translating what AEP has built into products banks can put in front of their own customers. Al Ramli said he would work with financial institutions and payment service providers to widen use of the platforms across the country, and help banks turn AEP's capabilities into services that answer customer needs.
For the banks plugged into these rails, the appointment sets a measure for what comes next: usage rather than infrastructure. A rail nobody pays on changes nothing about how money moves. The enrolment and transaction figures suggest the harder work now sits in branches and apps, where customers decide at the counter or on the screen how they will pay.
