Network International and CBD Widen SME Financing Beyond Card Terminals
Eligible UAE merchants can now seek collateral-free property loans and short-term working capital through the payment relationship they already hold.
Nadia Mansour Nadia Mansour covers fintech across the UAE and MENA for Anecdoted -- digital banking, payments licences and the startups building around them. nadia@anecdoted.com
Network International and Commercial Bank of Dubai have broadened a merchant lending referral partnership that until now covered point-of-sale loans alone. Eligible merchants and small and medium-sized businesses in the UAE can apply for collateral-free commercial property financing and short-term working capital loans. Smaller and relatively new businesses now qualify too, which widens access to bank financing across the country.
The two products answer different needs. Commercial property financing lets an eligible business buy the premises it trades from, removing rent from the cost base over time. Working capital loans cover short-term cash flow gaps. Both sit alongside the existing point-of-sale lending under a single merchant financing arrangement, so a business does not have to assemble separate credit relationships to fund equipment, inventory and property at once.
What each side brings
The structure leans on distribution. Network International supplies the merchant network; CBD supplies the balance sheet and the credit decision. Görkem Köseoğlu, group chief customer and AI officer at Network International, said the arrangement gives merchants practical routes to invest, manage liquidity and scale through a relationship they already have with the company.
For CBD, the partnership is a second channel to merchants that Network International has already banked in the transactional sense. The lender operates iBusiness and UP by CBD, digital platforms that serve micro and small businesses with banking, payments, credit and financial management services. Those platforms give the bank a route to deliver approved credit without branch visits.
Network International frames the expansion as part of a wider push to combine payment services, banking partnerships and merchant financing. The company works with more than 250 financial institutions and 240,000 merchants across over 50 countries in the Middle East and Africa.
Why the referral model travels
Small business lending in the region tends to stall at the same point: a merchant can show steady card takings but cannot post the collateral a bank wants against a loan. A payment provider sits inside those daily transactions, which gives a lender a view of revenue that a stand-alone application rarely produces. Turning that view into referrals is cheaper than opening new branches or building a salesforce aimed at businesses too small to justify one.
The expansion also tests how far a payments company can stretch its merchant relationships into credit. Point-of-sale lending is a narrow product tied to the terminal. Property and working capital financing are broader commitments, and they push the relationship closer to full-service business banking for companies that would otherwise be too young or too small to attract it.
The arrangement is designed to serve businesses at different growth stages, from newer merchants buying their first equipment to established firms purchasing the premises they operate from.
