Visa has appointed Mario Makary as vice president and country manager for the United Arab Emirates, the payments company confirmed on 22 September 2026. Makary steps up from his previous role leading Visa in the Levant, and will now oversee the company market strategy, client relationships and growth agenda in one of its most important markets in the Middle East.
In the new role Makary reports to the group country manager for the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar. He takes responsibility for Visa relationships with banks, fintechs, merchants and government partners across the Emirates, a market that has become a regional hub for digital payments, e-commerce and financial technology. The UAE has pushed hard on cashless payments and open digital infrastructure in recent years, and Visa competes there with other global networks as well as a growing field of local and regional players.
Makary is a payments industry veteran who has spent much of his career building Visa presence across the Levant, working on card issuance, acceptance, digital products and partnerships with financial institutions. That regional grounding is intended to give him an immediate understanding of the UAE market, its regulatory environment and the priorities of the banks and fintechs that sit at the centre of the payments ecosystem.
The appointment reflects the strategic weight Visa places on the UAE, both as a mature payments market and as a launchpad for new products and technology across the wider Gulf. Consumer adoption of contactless and mobile payments in the Emirates is among the highest in the region, and merchants and issuers there are frequently early adopters of new capabilities. Leading that market gives Makary a platform to shape how Visa develops its commercial, tokenisation and value-added services locally.
Visa is one of the largest payment technology companies in the world, connecting consumers, merchants, financial institutions and governments across more than two hundred countries and territories. Makary assumes his responsibilities as UAE country manager with immediate effect.
The United Arab Emirates has become one of the most advanced payments markets in the region, with high smartphone penetration, government-backed digital identity and payment rails, and a fast-growing e-commerce sector. That environment has made the country a proving ground for new payment technologies, from tokenised credentials and contactless transit to embedded finance, and issuers and merchants there frequently adopt new capabilities ahead of neighbouring markets.
For Visa, leadership of the UAE market is therefore about more than a single country result. Products and partnerships tested successfully in the Emirates often become templates for the wider Gulf and the broader Middle East. Makary task will be to keep Visa positioned at the centre of that ecosystem, deepening relationships with banks and fintechs while defending and growing the network share against rival schemes and account-to-account alternatives.
