Saudi Payments, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), announced that it has enabled financial technology companies to join the National Payment Network (Mada) and the licensing of two companies, namely: STC Pay and Geidea to join the network, as the first two non-bank entities. STC Pay will be able to issue Mada cards (both digital and plastic) that customers can use for making electronic payments through points of sale and websites, or to withdraw cash through ATMs inside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As for Geidea, it will provide hosting services for point of sale (POS) devices to merchants, in addition to providing them with POS devices with full services. Saudi Payments stated that this step comes within SAMA efforts aiming at enabling financial institutions to support the growth of the private sector and build an advanced financial infrastructure via linking and empowering service providers with the infrastructure of financial services and payments, in order to achieve the goals of the Financial Sector Development Program and the Kingdom's Vision 2030. Saudi Payments added that it would continue to work on enabling financial technology companies to provide innovative payment solutions and take advantage of the digital and operational infrastructure of the payment systems that it has developed under the supervision of SAMA. It said that this enhances competitiveness among banks and non-bank financial institutions to provide the best offers of electronic payment solutions, and increases the number of companies that provide this type of services. — SPA
