du Pay to Handle Rider Payouts for talabat's UAE Fleet Partners

talabat has selected du Pay as the digital wallet and payment platform for riders working with its fleet partners in the UAE. The agreement extends a partnership the two companies already had in place, and it follows strong adoption of du Pay among riders on the platform.

Under the expanded arrangement, fleet partners will pay riders through a single wallet. That removes the need for each fleet partner to run payouts separately through multiple providers. Riders already receive their monthly pay from fleet partners digitally through du Pay, and the wallet reaches thousands of riders every month.

Every du Pay account carries an IBAN, a free digital debit card and access to cash loans. Riders use the wallet for more than collecting wages. Sending money home, paying bills, recharging mobile credit and covering daily expenses all run through the same account.

What the two companies say

Roberto Mancone, chief executive of du Pay, said the company intends to build on the scale it has reached, simplify the way riders receive and manage money, and help businesses handle payments across large, diverse workforces more efficiently.

Simonida Subotic, VP and managing director for the UAE at talabat, said the new phase of the collaboration gives fleet partners a more streamlined way to manage payments while giving riders convenient access to financial services through a single wallet.

du Pay said its model could be applied to other employers that manage large, distributed workforces.

Why the payout structure matters

Delivery riders in the UAE are typically engaged through fleet partners rather than sitting on the platform's own payroll, which spreads payment duties across many smaller employers. Consolidating those payouts into one wallet changes the administrative load on the fleet side. It also changes what riders hold by default: an account with an IBAN rather than cash or a transfer into an outside provider.

That distinction carries weight for workers who send money abroad. Wages land somewhere traceable, in the same place a rider pays bills and covers day-to-day spending, instead of moving through a chain of intermediaries each month. Bundling a debit card and loan access into the same account puts the wage, the card and the credit line in one relationship rather than three.

The open question is scale. du Pay's pitch to other large, dispersed employers assumes the model holds as rider numbers and fleet partners grow, and that fleet partners see enough of a reduction in their own payment overhead to keep the arrangement in place.