Open Finance infrastructure provider Spare has entered a strategic partnership with UAE property technology platform Rewa to digitise rental payments and reduce the rental sector’s dependence on post-dated cheques. Under the agreement, Rewa will integrate Spare’s Pay-by-bank solution into its platform, allowing tenants to pay rent directly from their bank accounts. The companies say the integration is intended to streamline collections, provide clearer payment visibility and create a digital record of rental transactions from payment initiation through completion.
Digital Payments Replace Cheques
For tenants, the service is designed to remove the manual steps associated with cheque issuance and bank transfers, offering a direct account-to-account payment option instead. For landlords and property managers, the platform is expected to provide real-time information on payment status and greater certainty over rent collection. Rewa, which also offers tenants rewards on rental payments, is positioning the product as both a payment tool and a broader loyalty layer for the UAE rental market.
Built on UAE Open Finance
Spare’s Pay-by-bank capability operates through the Central Bank of the UAE’s Open Finance Framework, which allows authorised financial-service providers to connect secure payment and data services through APIs. The company provides Open Finance infrastructure across Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Kuwait, supporting businesses that want to embed financial connectivity within digital products. Dalal AlRayes, Spare’s co-founder and chief executive, said the partnership extends the UAE’s wider digital-government ambitions into a real estate process that has traditionally remained paper-heavy and operationally complex.
A Large Rental Market Opportunity
The potential market is substantial, with Dubai registering 1.38 million tenancy contracts worth a combined AED 126.4 billion in 2025, according to data cited from the Dubai Land Department. Those volumes underline the scale of payments that could shift from cheque-based processes to digital bank transfers as the ecosystem matures. While paper cheques remain embedded in many rental arrangements, the partnership reflects growing demand for faster reconciliation, traceable transactions and more transparent payment administration.
Rewards and Payment Visibility
Najib Khanafer, Rewa’s co-founder and chief executive, described the move away from post-dated cheques as a structural change rather than a simple convenience feature. He said that connecting Spare’s infrastructure would enable tenants to pay digitally while allowing landlords to gain immediate insight into collections that conventional cheques do not provide. The model also aligns with Rewa’s stated aim of combining rental payments with rewards, giving tenants an incentive to adopt digital payment behaviour while making payment flows easier for property stakeholders to manage.
Broader Real Estate Digitisation
The initiative supports the Dubai Land Department’s ambition for a fully digital and paperless real estate ecosystem, where transactions can be completed, monitored and documented electronically. By connecting property technology with regulated Open Finance rails, Spare and Rewa are seeking to address a practical friction point in the residential rental journey rather than merely digitising front-end paperwork. The approach could also establish a foundation for more integrated services across the property sector, provided adoption by landlords, managers, tenants and financial institutions continues to expand.
The Spare-Rewa partnership illustrates how Open Finance infrastructure is beginning to influence everyday property transactions in the UAE. Its success will depend on whether the convenience of direct bank payments, instant visibility and tenant rewards can overcome the established habit of using post-dated cheques. As the country’s Open Finance framework gains traction, rental payments may become a meaningful test case for how regulated digital rails can modernise high-volume, traditionally offline markets.