How the Middle East Pays: Cards, Digital Payments, and the Sanctions Gap 2026
Introduction
The US–Iran conflict has put Middle Eastern financial infrastructure back under the spotlight — from how Gulf banks process international payments to how a sanctioned economy like Iran still moves money domestically. The region’s payment systems are as polarized as its politics: Israel’s adults are among the world’s most digitally connected, Gulf states are rebuilding their payment rails around cards and apps, and Iran runs one of the strangest splits in the Global Findex data — near-universal debit cards with almost no credit cards.
This report ranks Middle East economies on digital payment adoption, debit and credit card ownership, and account ownership, using the World Bank Global Findex surveys. Every figure comes from the derived datasets behind this site’s country pages and carries its actual survey year.
The Data
Digital payment adoption
The Findex measure asks whether an adult made or received at least one digital payment in the past year. The Middle East spans the full range of the global table:
| Economy | Digital payment adoption (% of adults) | Survey year |
|---|---|---|
| Israel | 91.2% | 2021 |
| Iran | 86.0% | 2024 |
| United Arab Emirates | 76.6% | 2021 |
| Saudi Arabia | 75.7% | 2024 |
| Turkiye | 71.4% | 2024 |
| Oman | 60.4% | 2024 |
| Jordan | 38.2% | 2024 |
| Egypt | 36.3% | 2024 |
| Morocco | 32.0% | 2024 |
| Iraq | 25.0% | 2024 |
| Tunisia | 23.7% | 2024 |
| Libya | 23.5% | 2024 |
| Lebanon | 20.3% | 2024 |
| Algeria | 13.1% | 2024 |
| Yemen | 9.3% | 2022 |
Source: World Bank Global Findex; share of adults 15+. For the global picture, see our digital payments divide report.
Israel’s 91.2% and Iran’s 86% place both at the top of the global table — Iran ranks 41st worldwide, ahead of most of Western Europe’s 2021 readings. For the mechanics of what this indicator captures, see our explainer on what digital payment adoption means.
The Iran puzzle: cards without credit
The most striking pattern in the region is Iran’s card market. In the 2024 Findex wave:
| Indicator | Iran (% of adults) | Global rank |
|---|---|---|
| Debit card ownership | 89.1% | 23rd |
| Account ownership | 91.1% | 35th |
| Digital payment adoption | 86.0% | 41st |
| Credit card ownership | 12.4% | 66th |
Iran’s adults are among the most likely in the world to hold a debit card — 89.1%, ranking 23rd globally — yet only 12.4% own a credit card. That is a 76.7-point gap between the two card types, one of the largest anywhere. The explanation is structural: international card networks are cut off under sanctions, so the domestic Shetab debit network has become the workhorse of everyday payments, while revolving credit cards — which depend on a functioning credit bureau and international settlement — never scaled.
For comparison, Israel ranks 2nd in the world on credit card ownership at 79.1% (2021), and Turkiye sits at 43.7% (2024). The Gulf states fall in between: Saudi Arabia at 30.1% and the UAE at 26.8%.
Cards across the region
| Economy | Debit card (% adults) | Credit card (% adults) | Survey year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iran | 89.1% | 12.4% | 2024 |
| Bahrain | 80.1% | — | 2024 |
| Turkiye | 79.1% | 43.7% | 2024 |
| Saudi Arabia | 76.0% | 30.1% | 2024 |
| Kuwait | 70.6% | — | 2024 |
| United Arab Emirates | 68.8% | 26.8% | 2021 |
| Oman | 66.4% | 12.3% | 2024 |
| Israel | 48.6% | 79.1% | 2024 |
| Egypt | 32.6% | 6.0% | 2024 |
| Jordan | 29.9% | 6.8% | 2024 |
| Morocco | 27.2% | 0.6% | 2024 |
| Iraq | 23.8% | 10.1% | 2024 |
| Tunisia | 25.7% | 2.6% | 2024 |
| Lebanon | 13.4% | 4.5% | 2024 |
| Yemen | 4.2% | 0.5% | 2022 |
Source: World Bank Global Findex. Dashes indicate no observation in the extracted dataset. For the global debit card ranking, see debit card ownership rankings 2026.
Analysis
The region’s payment landscape is really three separate systems.
Card-linked banking in the Levant and Gulf. Israel’s 79.1% credit card ownership is a rich-economy profile — cards are a default account feature. Gulf states are mid-transition: debit cards are near-universal (66–80%), credit cards are growing, and digital payment adoption (60–77%) is climbing fast as governments push cashless agendas.
Sanctions-shaped rails in Iran. Iran shows that a country can be digitally advanced and financially isolated. Its 86% digital payment adoption rides on the domestic debit network — adults pay, transfer, and receive through bank-issued debit instruments that never touch international card networks. Credit, which requires cross-border settlement and credit information sharing, remains marginal at 12.4%. For the broader framework, see how sanctions reshape cross-border payments and what sanctions mean for financial access.
Low-adoption North Africa and fragile states. Morocco (0.6% credit cards), Algeria (13.1% digital payments), and Yemen (11.9% account ownership, 2022) sit at the bottom — the region’s real financial inclusion frontier is account access itself, not card type. See where banking still means walking in and inside the lowest account ownership countries.
Context
This is not the first time the region’s payments infrastructure has been in the news — see our coverage of the Gulf crisis and financial services and financial services trade under Gulf stress. What the Findex data adds is the household-level view: how ordinary adults actually hold and use payment instruments, regardless of what the banks and networks announce.
Mobile money remains a smaller part of the Middle East story than in Sub-Saharan Africa — the highest regional reading is Saudi Arabia at 36.5% (2024), followed by Turkiye at 23.3% and Jordan at 20.6%. For the global context on that channel, see our mobile money report and the explainer on how mobile money bridges financial inclusion.
Sources & method
All figures come from the World Bank Global Findex surveys (2021, 2022, and 2024 waves) as extracted into FinStatGlobe’s derived datasets. Digital payment adoption is the share of adults 15+ who made or received at least one digital payment in the past year; card ownership indicators measure personal ownership of a debit or credit card. Observed values cite their actual survey years; no figures are projections. For a detailed explanation of how these indicators are constructed, see the methodology page.
For more on reading these statistics responsibly, see reading fintech statistics responsibly and why account ownership does not guarantee card access.