Federal Decree Law No. 45 of 2021 — Personal Data Protection
UAE's federal PDPL; UAE Data Office is the supervisory authority
UAE Data Office
Middle East & North Africa · GDP rank #25
United Arab Emirates
AE · AED @ 0.2723/USD
The UAE has built the most ambitious state-led payments programme in the Gulf — Aani instant payments live since 2023 (12.5m users by May 2026), Jaywan domestic card scheme past 10m cards ahead of mandated targets, Digital Dirham retail launched March 2026, and CBUAE remains an active mBridge participant. The 88% non-citizen labour-force structure makes outbound remittance — US$45.5bn in 2024, largely to India, Pakistan and the Philippines — the anchor use case.
Tab 06
Fraud & security
Headline fraud totals and typology splits, the rollout of EMV chip, tokenisation, 3DS and biometrics, and the controlling data-protection and payments statutes.
Fraud growth moderated from 32% YoY in 2022 to 9% in 2024 on the back of mandatory biometric authentication in mobile banking since 2023 and Aani confirmation-of-payee.
Reported payment fraud · 2024
620M AED▲ +9% vs prior year
Card-not-present share
81%
3DS adoption on CNP
97%
Trend lines
What's growing fastest
Where a full typology breakdown is not published, the authorities typically disclose year-on-year growth in specific scam categories. Authorised push-payment (APP) scams and account-takeover fraud are the canonical “wallet era” concerns in most markets.
- Card-not-present share81%
- APP scam growth YoY+26%
- Account takeover growth YoY+18%
Controlling regulation
CBUAE Consumer Protection Regulation
Sets out conduct standards for financial institutions; includes APP-fraud liability framework effective 2024
Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE)