Ajar, the Middle East’s leading PropTech platform for cloud-based property management and rent collection, has announced a strategic partnership with Visa, the world’s leader in digital payments. As a designated Visa strategic merchant, the new collaboration strengthens Ajar’s mission to digitise the region’s real estate market.

The new partnership enables real estate agencies, landlords and property management companies that are registered on the Ajar platform to collect rent payments online. Quick, secure and efficient, the new digital payment platform is set to transform the process for both landlords and tenants, replacing the old, outdated system of cash and cheques with a convenient credit card transaction. 

Mohammad Al Munaikh, CEO of Ajar, commented, “We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with Visa. At Ajar, we aim to revolutionise the region’s property market through digitalisation, reducing losses by maximising efficiency. This new partnership enables us to harness Visa’s extensive expertise to create a safe and user-friendly platform that will forever change the way our customers manage their businesses.”

Rolled out across the GCC, the new digital payment infrastructure offers a number of key benefits to both landlords and tenants alike. Payments can be made instantly, with real-time payment tracking and multiple bank account capability, reducing the risk of bounced cheques and reserve fees. The efficient paperless system is both more environmentally sustainable and lowers print overheads, with a secure archiving system for e-receipts to keep track of payments. The fully contactless process bypasses the need for face-to-face human interaction, respecting social distancing measures and offering additional security to tenants during the Covid- 19 pandemic – more than 90 percent of the total rent collected through Ajar during lockdown was processed digitally. 

Ankush Devadason, Visa’s Country Manager for Kuwait commented, “Our new strategic partnership with Ajar marks an exciting new milestone in the evolution of the region’s property market. By partnering with one of the sector’s digital pioneers, we are able to put in place a convenient online payment system, secured through Visa tokenization solutions that transfers this traditional industry into the world of digital payments, helping facilitate the lives of both landlords and tenants. In light of the global pandemic, the new, contactless system makes transactions easier and safer than ever before.” 

Abdullah Al-Nusif, Investment Portfolio Manager at Ayan Real Estate, which uses Ajar’s platform to manage its portfolio of GCC properties, commented, “Ajar’s new online payment system enables us to greatly increase our capacity by managing more properties with our existing resources. It has helped us become more efficient in the way we manage our properties, leases, invoices and payments through one convenient platform, streamlining our operational procedures and reducing our overheads.” Coming soon, phase 2 of the Ajar-Visa partnership will further expand the digital payment platform to enable tenants to directly make payments even when landlords are not pre-registered with Ajar. Tenants will also be able to use the system by paying on credit and setting up regular payment plans though their own banks.