Canadian open banking solutions provider Salt Edge is expanding to Saudi Arabia to enable financial institutions to share their transactional data, initiate payments, and meet compliance requirements.

The company hopes to help Saudi banks comply with SAMA’s new open banking framework which requires banks to make their account information APIs available by the end of 2022 and payment initiation APIs available by March 2023.

Salt Edge is part of the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA)’s Open Banking Lab and is in process of applying to SAMA’s open banking regulatory sandbox for several use cases.

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Ottawa, Salt Edge’s existing partners in the region include Finastra, Temenos, Mambu, Spire, Thought Machine, Tuum, and ebankIT.

Institutions that are currently using its open banking solutions include Western Union, Odoo, Guaranty Trust Bank, Pleo, Byblos Bank, Ahli Bank, and Habib Bank.

“We expect the Saudi Arabia market to embrace open banking at a higher pace than other regions.

 

All the needed factors are here: a thoughtful and innovative regulator, a mandate for banks to develop their APIs based on a unique standard, and an increased demand from the market,”

said Alina Beleuta, Chief Growth Officer at Salt Edge.