Ottu Adopts Mastercard Merchant Cloud to Facilitate Digital Payments in GCC Region

Mastercard partnered with regional FinTech Ottu to expand access to local and global payment methods across four Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, including Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

The collaboration brings together the Mastercard’s Merchant Cloud payment platform and Ottu’s regional expertise to provide businesses in these countries with access to a range of payment methods through one integration, the companies said in a Tuesday (Dec. 16) press release .

Ottu’s Online Payment Management System (OPMS) optimizes and unifies online payment experiences for enterprises, according to the release.

“This collaboration reflects our shared ambition to reimagine digital payments in the region,” Ottu CEO Talal AlAwadhi said in the release. “By joining forces with Mastercard, we are creating a streamlined ecosystem where enterprises can grow with confidence.”

Mastercard Merchant Cloud provides access to more than 200 acquirers and acceptance at 110 million locations worldwide, according to the release.

The platform also offers network tokenization, fraud detection and authentication tools, as well as access to commerce-enabling services, per the release.

“Offering locally relevant payment methods is a key priority for our customers, and this partnership with Ottu helps us provide a seamless payment experience through a single integration,” Maria Parpou , executive vice president, Mastercard Merchant Cloud, said in the release.

Mastercard launched Merchant Cloud in October, saying the payments platform provides its services and those of its partners to merchants.

The company said the platform offers “scheme-agnostic solutions” for credential tokenization, guest checkout, fraud protection, identity verification and approval rate optimization, together with gateway services such as omnichannel experiences, efficient transaction routing and access to data insights.

“With Mastercard Merchant Cloud, commerce is truly simplified through a unified, scalable, secure and open infrastructure—one that not only supports the needs of merchant partners today with data, services and insights, but is also designed to anticipate the future of digital and agent-driven commerce,” Gaurang Shah , executive vice president for global acceptance and merchant solutions at Mastercard, said in an Oct. 14 press release.

Meanwhile, Ottu said in September that it partnered with EazyPay , a provider of point-of-sale and online payment gateway acquiring services, to facilitate digital payments in Bahrain.