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 03
Rails & infrastructure
The instant rail, the RTGS spine, the card switch, the direct-debit scheme, and the country's CBDC stance. Each rail is reported with operator, launch year, and 2024 flow so the relative scale across rails is readable at a glance.
CBDC status is deliberately granular: live, pilot, preparation, live stalled, and sceptical, no pilot are different things.
Digital Saudi Riyal (working title)
Target · TBD
SAMA ran Project Aber (wholesale CBDC with UAE Central Bank) in 2019-20; separate retail CBDC work folded into BIS Innovation Hub's Project mBridge, which SAMA observes but has not formally joined. No retail pilot announced.
Instant payments
sarie (SAMA Arabian Riyal Interbank Express)
The instant leg typically carries the vast majority of retail consumer flow in modern payment systems — and sits in direct tension with card networks and wallets for the same transactions.
sarie replaced the legacy SARIE batch system with a 24/7 instant rail in 2021; reached ~71% of retail A2A volume by end-2024 vs 22% at launch.
- Operator
- Saudi Payments (a SAMA subsidiary)
- Live since
- 2.0k
- Per-txn limit
- 20,000 SAR
- Fee per txn
- SAR 0 for consumers
Transactions · 2024
Cleared value · 2024
Participating institutions
RTGS
SARIE (legacy RTGS — now wholesale only)
The RTGS spine clears high-value interbank flow — including the settlement of the instant-rail cycles and card-network net positions. Transaction count is modest; cleared value is enormous.
- Operator
- SAMA
Transactions · 2024
Cleared value · 2024
Card switch
mada / Saudi Payments
Domestic card switch — processes all mada-branded transactions; also operates sarie and AFAQ regional connection.
Source · Saudi Payments
Direct debit
SADAD (bill payment system)
Direct debit is the boring rail that carries recurring subscriptions, utilities, and payroll pull-payments. It is routinely the largest single channel by count after cards.
Transactions · 2024