A New AI-Driven Era for UAE SME Credit

For many small businesses in the UAE, growth doesn’t stall because of a lack of customers or ideas. It stalls because cash flow is unpredictable, seasonal, or simply doesn’t fit into the boxes traditional lenders still use.

A café might be busy on weekends and quiet midweek. A retail store may peak during holidays and slow down after. A merchant could be processing hundreds of transactions every day but still struggle to show the kind of balance sheet a bank wants to see. On paper, these businesses look risky. In reality, many of them are operating just fine.

That gap between how SMEs actually trade and how lenders assess them is what Deem Finance is trying to close through a new partnership with Biz2X, a global AI-powered lending platform.

Deem Finance, part of the Gargash Group, has announced a strategic collaboration with Biz2X to expand data-driven, embedded finance for SMEs in the UAE. The goal is simple: make financing decisions based on how a business really performs, not just on static financial statements.

Instead of relying only on historical accounts, the partnership introduces POS-based SME financing. This means eligible merchants can access credit based on real-time sales and transaction data. In other words, lenders can see what’s happening in the business day to day, rather than guessing from last year’s numbers.

For many SMEs, especially those with seasonal or transaction-heavy models, access to working capital is still one of the biggest barriers to growth. Traditional banking systems often struggle to capture modern commerce, where revenue flows through digital payments, POS systems, and online platforms.

Deem’s approach is built around the idea that many small businesses are viable and resilient, but overlooked because old credit models don’t reflect how they operate. By embedding POS cash-flow insights into its credit decisioning, Deem aims to offer financing that is more predictable and aligned with real business cycles.

Practically, the solution focuses on speed and simplicity. SMEs go through a fully digital onboarding journey, with credit assessments and approvals typically completed within 48 hours. Instead of fixed repayments that ignore slow periods, repayment structures are linked to sales performance. That way, businesses aren’t squeezed during quieter months and can scale more comfortably when revenue picks up.

Chris Taylor, CEO of Deem Finance, says many SMEs are still blocked from funding that actually fits their operations. According to him, using real transaction data allows Deem to lend in a way that moves with a business rather than against it, helping entrepreneurs focus more on running and growing their companies instead of worrying about rigid repayment pressure.

On the technology side, Biz2X brings experience from global markets. Its platform already powers more than US$37 billion in SME lending worldwide, using analytics and automated underwriting to help financial institutions make faster, data-led decisions.

Rohit Arora, CEO and Co-Founder of Biz2X and Biz2Credit, explains that the company’s mission is to make access to credit simpler and more aligned with real business performance. Partnering with Deem Finance allows that model to enter the UAE through a regulated local institution that understands the market and its SMEs.

For the wider ecosystem, the partnership reflects a broader shift in how SME finance is evolving. Instead of asking small businesses to fit into legacy banking systems, lenders are beginning to adapt to how businesses already operate — through transactions, digital payments, and real-time data.

For UAE SMEs, that could mean fewer hurdles, faster decisions, and financing that matches their actual cash flow rather than an idealised version of it on paper.

As the UAE continues to focus on economic diversification and entrepreneurship, initiatives like this signal a move toward more practical, inclusive ways of supporting the businesses that keep the economy running every day.