Points of Sale set Record Toll of Mushrooming, across the Kingdom -SAMA Confirmed

Overall tally of the points of sale, has crossed the 1million-landmark, as they are available at an array of outlets and spots, in more than 180 cities and villages, across the Kingdom.

Such a development is an off-shoot of the strategic plan, the central bank worked on with the participation of the financial sector, during the past years, in addition to the large investments, in developing the infrastructure of the payments’ sector, and promoting possible regulatory frameworks to stimulate the private sector, to expand, innovate, explore and keep abreast with new financial services, including adopting up-to-date types, in order to bolster businesses and transactions, through the way Mubasher, in achieving the goal of the Financial Sector Development Program, one of the programs of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.

Noteworthy, it is targeting pushing the digital payments to 70% by 2025, out of the total payment operations.

That is thanks to the efforts of “Saudi Payments” significant impact on the development and operation of infrastructure, as well as enabling financial authorities to provide the latest technologies related to the digital payment.

As the tally of points of sale networks, in the Kingdom have exceeded the million mark, the Deputy Governor of SAMA for Development and Technology Ziyad Al-Yousef commended the achievement, indicating that an increase in the consumers as well the stores satisfaction with such a technique, shown the confidence, across the Kingdom, in relying on digital payment methods in their daily transactions, thus directly supporting realizing the wise leadership directives and orientation, focusing on the digitization of the Saudi economy.

Point-of-sale network is among the critically significant enabler to achieve the most crucial strategic objectives of the financial sector development program, to grow the digitization of payments, and increase the base of its spread, in all commercial sectors, Kingdom-wide.

Recently achieved step in the spread of point-of-sale devices shows the extent to which merchants accept and rely on digital payment methods, as basic payment methods that help facilitate commercial transactions and reduce operating costs for stores, Al-Yousef indicated, elaborating that the Year 2021 has experienced a growth in the points of sale by more than 40%, as their number has increased from 721,000 devices by the end of 2020 to exceed the one million device barrier by the end of 2021.

The increase coincides with a significant growth in the operations executed through the point of sale devices, by 80%, he added, as the number of POS devices’ operations has outpaced as much as 5 billion by the end of 2021, compared to 2.8 billion in 2020, he explained.

Finally, there are several factors that contributed to these current and ongoing rise, the most important among are: cooperation with government agencies to provide digital payment options, in various commercial sectors, increasing public awareness of the significance of digital payments, and the increase in the number of companies providing payment services, following starting to grant licenses, at the beginning of the Year 2020, Al-Youssef stated.

Moreover, there is the provision of as much as new services, such as: payments via smart devices (Mobile Payment), and the launching of the smart point of sale service (Soft PoS), he concluded.