The open banking framework introduced by the Saudi Central Bank in November is one of the key drivers of the sector, enabling businesses to test their products and services against established frameworks, in, turn, helping retailers to widen their customer base.<\/span><\/p>\nFurthermore, in May the Council of Ministers unveiled its Fintech Strategy as a new pillar in the Saudi Vision 2030 Financial Sector Development Program. The initiative sought to attract 525 fintech players and create 18,000 in the field while also attracting SAR12.2 billion in cumulative venture capital investments, generating SAR13.3 billion in direct GDP impact.<\/p>\n
Between September 2021 and August 2022, Saudi Arabia welcomed 65 new fintech companies, bringing the total number of active players to 147, which is up 79 per cent year-on-year, according to Fintech Saudi\u2019s latest annual report.<\/p>\n
Executive vice president \u2013 at cards & payments, Al-Futtaim Group,\u00a0Paul Carey, said: “A number of powerful competitive forces are driving this new wave of change. On the one hand, we have a growing young population and the need to win the 18 to 30-year-old consumer is a crucial driver of innovation and digitisation.<\/p>\n
“On the other hand, we have seen global businesses that had been playing a waiting game when it comes to MENA now making the region a focus for their market expansion plans.\u00a0Naturally, the fast-growing e-commerce market makes reaching consumers here more accessible than ever if you\u2019re a global brand. The influx of international players is a wonderful testament to the opportunities presented by our digital economy and a powerful spur for local businesses to keep a laser focus on sharpening their competitive edge.”<\/p>\n
Notably, this rapid growth of Saudi fintech and the close intersection between retail and technology is a relatively new phenomenon. The sector only started gaining steam soon after lockdown, which drastically altered spending habits and accelerated the large-scale adoption of digital financial services by merchants.<\/span><\/p>\nFounder and CEO at HyperPay, a Saudi-based fintech start-up that equips retailers\u00a0with various integrated payment solutions, Muhannad Ebwini, told StartupScene: \u201cEverything changed when the pandemic came. It took us three years ahead in terms of growth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nMr Ebwini added that HyperPay experienced 179 per cent growth during the pandemic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why a tide of fintech start-ups is good news for Saudi retailers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":20876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[154,3927,1,4106],"tags":[2512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21378"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21378"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21415,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21378\/revisions\/21415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.meretailnews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}