Saudi Fintech Licences: The Startups Winning Central Bank Approval

Saudi Arabia's fintech sector has entered a new commercial phase as the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) accelerates its licensing pipeline, issuing the kingdom's first live open banking licences in March 2026 and elevating a select cohort of startups to fully regulated status. SAMA's move permits licensed fintechs to access real-time customer banking data via standardised APIs with consent, and follows data showing electronic payments accounted for 85% of total retail payments in Saudi Arabia in 2025, up from 79% the previous year.

"The pilot programme era is finished. The era of commercial fintech infrastructure has begun," industry observers say, reflecting the central bank's shift from experimentation to supervised commercial rollout.

The March open banking licences mark the most significant change in Saudi financial services since the launch of mada, the domestic payments network. By enabling consented access to transactional data, the licences create opportunities for new credit, wealth and payments products built on behavioural data rather than paper-based underwriting. That capability is particularly relevant for high-net-worth families and institutional treasuries seeking consolidated views, automated cash sweeping and credit calibrated to real-time flows across multiple Saudi banks.

Who has cleared the bar

Progressing from SAMA's fintech regulatory sandbox—opened in 2018—to live commercial licences has been selective. Companies that have secured approvals typically demonstrate strong governance, clear compliance capacity and business models designed to complement incumbent banks. Sectors singled out in the current cohort include embedded lending platforms, payroll-linked services for migrant workers, and B2B payment infrastructure aimed at SMEs, a priority under Vision 2030. SAMA has also favoured Shariah-compliant fintechs where compliance was embedded from day one.

• Mal: The AI-native Islamic digital financial platform raised a $230 million seed round backed by Abu Dhabi's BlueFive Capital. Mal's leadership includes executives from Revolut and Nubank, and the company is in active regulatory talks across the UAE, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Pakistan.
• Tabby: After reaching a $4.5 billion valuation via a secondary share sale in October 2025, Tabby secured a Stored Value Facilities licence from the Central Bank of the UAE in 2026. CEO Hosam Arab has said "Tabby's ambitions extend well beyond buy-now-pay-later," and observers note that a SAMA licence would "transform Tabby from a Saudi-market operator into a Saudi-market institution."
• Jeel (Riyad Bank): Jeel is piloting blockchain-enabled cross-border transfers and tokenisation in partnership with Ripple—described by partners as "not as a proof of concept, but as a live test within a regulatory framework."

The Jeel–Ripple pilot is particularly noteworthy for family offices and corporates managing Gulf-to-South-Asia remittance corridors. Live blockchain settlement inside a regulated Saudi banking entity could materially reduce cross-border costs and signals SAMA's willingness to accommodate distributed ledger technology when institutional governance standards are met.

Outlook

For investors and family offices, the SAMA licence cohort represents a narrow pre-institutional window. Licensed fintechs in Saudi Arabia are likely to see lowered execution risk and faster routes to institutional partnerships, procurement and potential acquisition by major banks. SAMA's approach is not blanket deregulation; it is selective licensing intended to build a supervised ecosystem capable of absorbing private capital at scale. Given the short historical window between regulatory approval and institutional absorption in the Gulf, the companies receiving SAMA approval in 2026 are expected to attract significant interest from regional and international capital.