FOO and BENEFIT expand Bahrain’s digital wallet

FOO and BENEFIT deliver 100 upgrades to Bahrain’s BenefitPay digital wallet

UAE-based B2B FinTech solutions provider FOO and Bahrain’s electronic financial transactions provider BENEFIT have delivered the 100th Change Request (CR) for BenefitPay, Bahrain’s national digital wallet. The milestone marks a sustained partnership that has rolled out feature and technical improvements designed to enhance the app’s usability and security. The latest upgrade enables users to access their personal QR code directly from the app’s homepage, streamlining transfers and payments across the platform.

“The pace of development achieved through this partnership reflects the strong alignment, mutual trust and close collaboration between our teams,” said BENEFIT deputy chief executive of business development and services Yousif Al Nefaie. “Together, we have established the capabilities needed to continually advance BenefitPay and deliver secure, innovative digital solutions that respond to evolving customer needs.”

The collaboration has included user interface and experience redesigns, additional backend integrations and strengthened security measures. FOO implemented the Digital Wallet and Digital Merchant Platform that underpin BenefitPay and has integrated more than 20 financial services into the wallet, spanning international money transfers, bill splitting, payments to multiple recipients, electronic cheque transactions and money requests.

• Milestone: 100 Change Requests delivered through the partnership
• User base: BenefitPay has more than 1.3 million active subscribers
• Engagement: the platform records 1.7 million app visits each day
• Scale: BenefitPay has processed more than 1.9 billion transactions across Fawri, Fawri+ and Fawateer

FOO has also integrated several payment channels and security technologies into BenefitPay. The platform supports QR code payments, Tap and Go, online checkout and in-app payment services. Tokenisation is used to secure credit, debit and prepaid card credentials for contactless payments by replacing sensitive card data with digital tokens. FOO’s AI-powered identity verification solution has been embedded to allow BENEFIT to authenticate identity documents and automatically perform face matching, a capability aimed at preventing fraud and supporting regulatory compliance.

“Reaching the milestone of 100 CRs reflects what can be achieved through deep collaboration, relentless innovation and a strong strategic partnership,” said FOO co-founder and chief executive officer Ghady Rayess. “Our teams have worked closely together to introduce features that improve the user experience and extend the value that digital financial services can deliver.”

The partnership’s technical focus has combined frontend improvements with backend extensibility: recent CRs included UI/UX updates to simplify navigation, broader integrations with financial service providers and enhancements to platform security. Those changes support BenefitPay’s high-volume environment — serving over a million subscribers and handling millions of daily visits — while positioning the wallet to accommodate additional services and merchant integrations.

Looking ahead, the two partners appear set to continue incremental releases and security-focused enhancements. The modular, SaaS-based microservices platform offered by FOO supports products such as remittances, tokenised transactions, automated micro-lending and buy now, pay later, providing a route for BenefitPay to expand its service offering. Continued deliveries of Change Requests are likely to prioritise seamless payment flows, broader financial-service integrations and advanced fraud-prevention measures to maintain the platform’s scalability and trust among users.