Saudi Arabia Report Record Payments’ Adoption Rate

The Saudi Central Bank announced that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had the highest rate of adoption of payments via Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, at 94%, outperforming the level of the European Union, Hong Kong, Canada, and the countries of the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA).

The Central Bank clarified that the Kingdom’s progress over these countries comes within the framework of its strategic vision, launched from the objectives of the Financial Sector Development Program (one of the programs of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030), which aims to enhance electronic payment and reduce cash transactions; raise the percentage of electronic payments to 70% of the total payments by 2025.

To achieve these goals, the Central Bank has adopted payments via Near Field Communication (NFC) technology, and they have been implemented on the ground since 2016, after ensuring the level of security and the emergence of international standards for them, which was a strategic step, towards speed up and facilitate electronic payments.

The Central Bank indicated that the appropriate infrastructure was developed to adopt the technology, specifications and standards were provided that enable everyone to use it, through a coordinated work program with the Saudi payments, payment companies and banks, which included upgrading the entire national payment system.

Thus replacing all bank cards, in addition to upgrade point of sale devices, and ensure that all new devices support the technology.

Several factors have contributed to the rapid growth of payments via (NFC) technology, in the Kingdom, foremost of which are: the Central Bank’s decision to increase the amounts allowed to be paid via technology from SR100-SR300, enabling payment through the use of smart devices, and the decision of the National Anti-Concealment Program to obligate all commercial activities by providing point of sale devices.

In addition to awareness efforts to familiarize the public with technology, the importance of relying on it when electronic payment, and correcting misconceptions about its level of security.

The Central Bank confirmed that public transport projects and the Riyadh metro project will rely on near-field communication technology, in the implementation of payment operations, a step that makes the public transport system in the Kingdom dependent on the latest payment technologies.

The announcement of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s lead comes according to a study prepared by Saudi Payments, in partnership with Visa International, a pioneer in the field of digital payments technology, under the title: Adopting NFC Payments in Saudi Arabia 2020, which included the European Union countries, Canada, Hong Kong, the Middle East and North Africa, where the percentage of technology dependence, in the European Union reached 80%, followed by Hong Kong with 79%, Canada with 76%, while the share of the Emirates and Kuwait was 81%, apiece for each.