The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has announced the licensing of two finance companies, Forus and Tameed that specialise in debt-based crowdfunding.
The licences were granted to the companies after successful testing of their solutions in SAMA’s Regulatory Sandbox; an experimental environment dedicated to innovative financial products and services in Saudi Arabia.
This initiative is part of the work SAMA has been doing to strengthen the finance sector, by encouraging innovators and investors who can add value to the sector while adhering to the supervisory guidelines defined by SAMA.
In a statement announcing the approval the Saudi Central Bank stressed the importance of exclusively dealing with licensed and authorised financial institutions, and reiterated its commitment to promoting financial inclusion in the Kingdom.
The Saudi government recently announced plans to triple the number of fintech companies in the Kingdom by 2025 under a new national strategy with an aim to transform Riyadh into a global fintech capital alongside London and Singapore.
The FinTech Strategy, which is a new pillar in the Saudi Vision 2030 Financial Sector Development Program (FSDP), seeks to increase the fintech sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) to SAR 4.5 billion ($1.2 billion) and create nearly 6,000 jobs by 2025. In addition, it aims to increase the share of non-cash digital transactions to 70 percent by 2025.
A Fintech Saudi National Fintech Adoption Survey reveled that fintech transaction values jumped by more than 18 percent between 2017 and 2019 year-on-year, reaching over $20 billion in 2019. They are expected to surpass $33 billion in 2023.
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