Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector is making significant progress towards becoming a regional financial hub.
The number of fintech companies in the country has more than doubled in just one year, growing from 89 in 2022 to about 200 in 2023. Non-cash transactions have also surged dramatically, increasing from 18% of all transactions in 2016 to 62% by 2021, according to a 2024 report by management consultancy Arthur D. Little.
Key initiatives such as Fintech Saudi, a hub launched in 2018 by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and the Saudi Capital Markets Authority, have helped foster this growth. Programs like the Fintech Accelerator, the Fintech Saudi Innovation Hub, and various events such as career fairs, a fintech tour, and summer sessions, have also contributed to creating a supportive environment for startups to thrive.
Within this burgeoning fintech ecosystem, several young startups are making significant strides, recording substantial growth and garnering investor attention. Today, we look at some of Saudi Arabia’s most promising fintech startups in 2024, highlighting their value propositions and recent achievements.
Simplified Financial Solutions Company (SiFi)
Founded in 2021, Simplified Financial Solutions Company (SiFi) provides a spend management platform. The company’s platform features a comprehensive suite of innovative solutions that simplify the entire spend management process, including smart corporate cards, real-time insights into corporate spend, and automated expense management workflows.
Serving the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, SiFi provides businesses with superior financial insights, control, and efficiency through its comprehensive expense management platform. The SiFi mobile application enables quick payment of company expenses, easy issuance of corporate cards, and streamlined expense submission with attached receipts and memos. Advanced automation features empower businesses to operate more effectively.
The platform’s key features include unlimited corporate card issuance, expense management, out-of-pocket reimbursements, accounting automation, and budget management.
SiFi claims it is the first expense management fintech in Saudi Arabia to receive licensing from SAMA), and says it has earned the trust of over 100 customers.
In May 2024, SiFi secured US$10 million in a seed funding round led by Sanabil Investments, a wholly-owned company by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), and RAED Ventures. This funding will enable SiFi to enhance its offerings and reinforce its position as the leading spend management solution in Saudi Arabia.
Tameed
Founded in 2019, Tameed Debt Crowd Lending Platform (Tameed) offers shariah-compliant financing for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, the company’s platform addresses the challenges faced by SMEs with government purchase orders (PO). These companies often have guaranteed agreements with strict delivery deadlines but face difficulties obtaining financing from traditional banks.
Tameed’s PO crowd-financing platform offers a collaborative, flexible, and scalable solution tailored to their needs, ensuring they meet critical delivery timelines. It combines state-of-the-art technology with an innovative funding structure, providing benefits such as instant financing for government and corporate PO and performance bonds up to US$7.5 million.
For investors, Tameed offers competitive returns exceeding 15% net annually, backed by government PO, ensuring compliance with shariah law and know-your-customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML), and countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) regulations.
The Tameed app features include instant financing requests, competitive investment opportunities, an auto-invest feature for customized investment alerts, and the Mokafa’a Points Program, which rewards investors for their deposits. Future expansions include e-commerce financing and shariah-compliant expense management cards.
The company claims to have distributed US$106.6 million in shariah-compliant government PO financing to SMEs in Saudi Arabia since its inception.
Tameed secured US$15 million in a Series A funding round in December 2023, just a few months after receiving its operating license from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) in January 2023 following its exit from SAMA’s Fintech Sandbox. The funding aims to accelerate Tameed’s growth and meet the rising demand for its digital lending products.
Nearpay
Founded in 2020, Nearpay is a fintech startup specializing in payment-infrastructure-as-a-service. Nearpay’s infrastructure has been built from the ground up, focusing on providing a revolutionary payments experience for both merchants and consumers.
The company’s software point-of-sale (POS) technology offers a touchless payment solution that is both secure and user-friendly, facilitating a smooth transaction process and enhancing operational efficiency. It allows businesses to accept payments on any device equipped with near field communication (NFC), such as phones, tablets, kiosks, and handheld devices, eliminating the need for additional hardware and reducing costs for businesses.
Nearpay secured US$14 million in a Series A in December 2023 to support its global expansion, advance its technological capabilities, and reinforce its commitment to excellence in payments infrastructure, particularly focusing on card-present payments.
Noon Hakbah
Founded in 2018, Noon Hakbah (Hakbah) is an integrated app specialized in alternative financial savings and focusing particularly on Jamiya, also known as savings groups, committee, Ayuuto, Chit fund, or Chits.
The Hakbah app modernizes traditional group savings methods, allowing users to save and access funds via social savings through digital means. The intelligent platform offers a one-stop solution for savings groups to initiate, manage, join, and pay directly within the mobile app.
Hakbah says it is rapidly growing in Saudi Arabia’s US$216 billion savings market, achieving an 18-time increase in total savings under management and a four-times increase in revenue within a year. It also has formed strategic partnerships with notable entities like Flynas and boasts a customer base of over 500,000 users, predominantly aged between 21 and 35
Hakbah has offices in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and DIFC Fintech Hive, Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and graduated from the DIFC Tech Accelerator Program in 2019. In December 2023, the startup raised US$5.1 million in a Series A funding round, bringing its total funding to US$9 million. The company said it would use the proceeds to support its plans to expand into two regional markets through partnerships or strategic alliances, addressing the Middle East’s savings crisis and contributing to the strategic objectives of Saudi Vision 2030.
Spare
Founded in 2018, Spare is an open banking startup providing a platform for businesses to access their customers’ financial data and create innovative financial products.
Spare operates primarily in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain, focusing on offering cutting-edge solutions that facilitate faster and easier access to financial services and solutions. The platform connects with all banks in the region and offers a single connection to businesses, simplifying the access to data. It serves a diverse range of innovative businesses in Saudi Arabia, including traditional lenders, buy now, pay later (BNPL) fintech startups, and electronic fund management services.
Spare is licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain as an account information service provider and payment initiation service provider (AISP/PISP). The company is also certified as an open banking provider in Saudi Arabia. In Kuwait, it is currently testing its open banking services under the Central Bank of Kuwait sandbox.
In December 2023, Spare closed a US$3 million funding round led by Vision Ventures, with participation from Wa’ed Ventures, Seedra Ventures, global investment firm 500 Global, and notable angel investors. The company said it would use the proceeds for talent acquisition, marketing, and expanding operations in Saudi Arabia.
Lynk
Lynk, launched by BIM Ventures’ Saudi Venture Studio in 2023, is an emerging fintech company that connects financial institutions, commodity markets, and beneficiaries through its shariah-compliant services.
The company provides a platform that automates Murabaha transactions, an Islamic financing method where the seller and buyer agree on the cost and markup of an asset.
Lynk says its technology has rapidly become a critical component of Saudi Arabia’s fintech ecosystem, automating over SAR 100 million (US$26.7 million) in Murabaha transactions since its inception. The platform boasts the capability to handle 15,000 daily transactions, valued at over SAR 5 billion (US$1.2 billion), each executed in under a minute.
In November 2023, Lynk secured an investment round from Al Fozan Holding and Ramla Holding Group, with the amount raised remaining undisclosed. The company plans to introduce additional fintech products designed to support financial institutions, and expand its reach within the financial sector both locally and internationally.
Featured image credit: edited from freepik
