Middle East & North Africa

Verify Customers In Every MENA Market On One Integration

One configurable integration applies the right regulator's rules at entry, with in-region data residency and Arabic document and name coverage built in. The result is KYC, KYB and AML that clears the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt without a rebuild for each one.

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240+Regions actively processed

ISO 270012022 certified

SOC 2Type 2 audited

ArabicOCR & name-matching

One integration across MENA — world map with KYC/AML/KYB/Fraud coverage

The MENA problem

One FATF Mandate. Ten National Rulebooks.

What's genuinely harmonized

Fragmented regulators. The UAE alone runs a federal authority, two free zones and five crypto regulators.
No passporting. Every market is licensed and onboarded separately.
200+ nationalities. Arabic and Latin documents in one onboarding queue.

What still diverges

A moving FATF map. Kuwait added 2026, Lebanon 2024, UAE removed 2024.
Data residency. Saudi PDPL and UAE free-zone laws gate procurement.

What shapes MENA compliance

Three Forces, Not One Rulebook

FATF pressure, region-wide

Grey-list risk forced UBO transparency, DNFBP rules and hard enforcement. The UAE suspended 32 gold refineries over 256 AML violations in 2024.

State digital ID and localisation

Government eID sets a high bar. UAE Pass alone passed 11M users, while Saudi PDPL and UAE free-zone laws require in-region handling.

Virtual-asset leadership

The UAE is a licensed VASP hub. VARA has issued 50 licences, while Saudi, Kuwait and Egypt restrict crypto. Positioned market by market.

Two Proofs Win MENA. A Third Sets It Apart.

Data residency

In-region MENA processing, configurable retention per jurisdiction, and an on-premise option for Saudi PDPL and UAE free-zone laws.

Arabic coverage

Arabic OCR, right-to-left documents, and name-matching tuned for Arabic transliteration, across 150+ languages and scripts.

VASP-ready

KYC, Travel-Rule onboarding and transaction-context screening for licensed virtual-asset platforms in VARA and ADGM.

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Market by market

How Requirements Differ Across MENA

9 Markets Live coverage

In production

One Flow. Every Market

STEP 01

Enter

Country and risk rules select the checks each applicant needs, per market.

STEP 02

Verify

STEP 03

Business

STEP 04

Screen

STEP 05

Decide

STEP 06

Monitor

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Fraud & financial crime

The MENA fraud surface, mapped to capability

+58%Deepfake Selfies, 2025

+40%Injection Attacks, YoY

Document Fraud

200+ nationalities, Arabic and Latin documents. Document verification, Arabic OCR.

Money Mules

Gulf corridors, Dubai-linked recruiter rings. Identity, liveness, ongoing monitoring.

Trade-Based Laundering

Dubai gold and trade hub, DNFBP enforcement. KYB, UBO, sanctions screening.

Sanctions Evasion

Iran and Syria proximity, re-export risk. Real-time sanctions and adverse media.

Arabic Name Evasion

One name, many romanised spellings. Transliteration name-matching.

Deepfake And Injection

Rising fastest across onboarding. Liveness, injection-attack defence.

BNPL First-Party

Tabby 15M+, Tamara 20M+ users. Identity assurance, thin-file checks.

Industry-Specific Solutions

Built For Your Business

CDD, EDD & Sanctions Screening

Run customer due diligence, enhanced due diligence and sanctions screening for banks operating under GCC and MENA AML rulebooks.

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Built for your buying group.

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Compliance Officer

Meet FATF, UBO, sanctions and data rules per market with jurisdiction-aware workflows and audit-ready evidence.

Head of Product

Eliminate market-specific friction with a configurable engine that scales to 240+ regions actively processed, using localised pass-rate data to optimise UX before you even go live.

Head of Engineering

Stop managing vendor sprawl and start building. Deploy one REST API for the entire user lifecycle, backed by enterprise-grade SLAs and comprehensive SDK coverage.

Fraud Analyst

Slash manual review times with a unified Fraud Hub that surfaces the reason behind every flag before your team even opens the case.

Regional FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Shufti compliant with MENA data-protection laws?

Shufti's data-processing architecture is built around the region's data-protection regimes — including Saudi PDPL, the UAE's PDPL and free-zone laws, and Egypt's PDPL — with lawful-basis processing and explicit-consent handling for biometric data. Confirm the specific processing terms for your use case with your Shufti compliance contact.

Does Shufti support national digital-ID schemes like UAE Pass?

Yes. Shufti's identity verification bridges the region's government eID schemes — UAE Pass alone has passed 11M users — and falls back to document, biometric and NFC verification in markets where a national eID is not yet available. Ask your Shufti contact for the current per-market status.

Are all MENA markets treated the same?

No. There is one FATF mandate but ten national rulebooks. Each market is licensed and onboarded separately — the UAE alone runs a federal authority, two free zones and five crypto regulators — and grey-listed markets such as Kuwait trigger enhanced due diligence. Shufti applies the right regulator's rules per market from one integration.

Which MENA countries does Shufti support?

Coverage spans the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan and Morocco as part of Shufti's broader 240+ country and territory coverage. See the market-by-market matrix above for regulator and requirement detail per country.

Does Shufti support VASP and virtual-asset businesses in MENA?

Yes. Shufti supports KYC, Travel-Rule onboarding and transaction-context screening for licensed virtual-asset platforms, including those regulated by VARA and ADGM. Confirm Travel Rule data-capture requirements for your specific transfer flows with your Shufti contact.

How does Shufti handle data residency in MENA?

Shufti offers in-region MENA processing alongside an on-premise deployment option for enterprises with strict Saudi PDPL or UAE free-zone residency requirements. Retention is configurable per client and jurisdiction.

Onboard across MENA without rebuilding for every market

Ten national rulebooks, one integration, and data residency set per market, backed by ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2 Type 2 and independent liveness validation.

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