Middle East & North Africa · GDP rank #18
Saudi Arabia
SA · SAR @ 0.2667/USD
Saudi Arabia has structurally over-delivered its Vision 2030 cashless objective — SAMA reported 85% of retail transactions ran non-cash in 2025, well ahead of the original 70%-by-2030 target. The system is anchored by mada, the SAMA-owned domestic debit scheme that routes ~84% of card volume; sarie, the 24/7 instant rail that scaled from 22% to >70% of retail A2A in three years; and an Apple Pay deployment with the highest iPhone penetration in MENA. The next chapter is exporting the stack regionally through the AFAQ GCC bridge.
Tab 05
Cross-border
Inbound and outbound remittance corridors, tourism flows, FX markup on retail cross-border, and the country's posture on stablecoin adoption. Corridor figures come from the World Bank RPW feed or the publishing central bank; both are cited when they disagree.
Reported inbound corridors
1 corridor
Reported outbound corridors
5 corridors
Avg. consumer FX markup
Trend · compressing
Top inbound corridors
- United States$80.0M
4.1% cost
Top outbound corridors
- India$12.8B
via Al Rajhi Bank Tahweel, NCB QuickPay, STC Pay cross-border · 3.9% cost
- Pakistan$6.9B
4.2% cost
- Bangladesh$4.8B
4.4% cost
- Egypt$4.1B
4.6% cost
- Philippines$2.6B
4.1% cost
FX cost
What consumers pay above the interbank
Retail FX markup is the spread between the mid-market rate and the rate the consumer receives — the single largest friction point in small-ticket cross-border.
Al Rajhi Tahweel and STC Pay Cross-Border are the lowest-cost channels for major outbound corridors, at 1.8-2.4% all-in.
Consumer FX markup vs 3% ceiling
Benchmark 3% is the G20 target for average remittance corridor cost; above the mark is expensive by policy standard.
Trend · compressing
SAMA
Virtual assets remain outside the formally regulated payments perimeter; SAMA issued a warning in 2018 that has not been rescinded, although CMA is consulting on a tokenisation framework H2 2026.
Full reference
Regional Integration
Name: AFAQ (Arab Regional Payment System)
Status: live
Participants: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan — 8 central banks
Note: GCC instant cross-border settlement layer, operated by SAMA-owned Saudi Payments; ISO 20022-native. sarie-Aani bilateral retail corridor live since March 2026.
GCC instant cross-border settlement layer, operated by SAMA-owned Saudi Payments; ISO 20022-native. sarie-Aani bilateral retail corridor live since March 2026.
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