Saudi Arabia’s fintech industry enjoyed a strong year 2025, marked by the rapid expansion of its startup community, deeper cashless adoption, and continued progress in digital banking.

Digital payments saw sustained growth, driven by wider use of payment cards, electronic payments, and the widespread adoption of mobile wallets. New digital banks launched operations, while others secured regulatory approval, with early entrants already securing millions of customers.

At the same time, AI and data centers emerged as national priorities, and regulators expanded fintech licensing, sandboxes, and fintech labs, to support experimentation and scale.

Together, these developments are paving the way for a dynamic year 2026. Industry experts expect a maturing digital payment market with heightened competition, continued momentum in wealthtech, and a gradual shift in alternative lending toward serving small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Increased competition in digital payments

Saudi Arabia’s digital payment landscape is set for heightened competition in 2026 as the country opens its mobile wallet market to foreign players. This move aims to boost its digital economy, accelerate innovation, and attract international capital and resources.

Google launched its digital payments and mobile wallet services in the country in September 2025, targeting local Saudi residents and focusing on everyday retail spending and Android users, the country’s dominant mobile OS. These transactions are enabled by mada, the local payment scheme.

Ant International’s Alipay+ also received regulatory approval from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) in 2025. The service, which is expected to go live by 2026 in Saudi Arabia, already connects 1.7 billion user accounts, primarily from China, Southeast Asia, and East Asia, regions that Saudi Arabia is actively targeting for inbound tourism.

Like Google Pay and Google Wallet, Alipay+ will run on mada and process transactions through local payment rails.

Thunes, a Singaporean cross-border payment startup, is another fintech company expanding its footprint in Saudi Arabia. In September, it rolled out real-time cross-border payments into country, enabling overseas businesses to send money into Saudi Arabia seamlessly and securely.

Google Pay, Google Wallet and Alipay+ join Samsung Pay, which entered the market a year ago following the issuance of the “E-Wallets Rules” by SAMA, which regulate Electronic Money Institutions.

These developments demonstrate that while Saudi Arabia is allowing foreign leaders to operate cashless and mobile payments at a national scale, it is committed to maintaining control over its payment system and ensuring that mada remains the core payment layer, that local banks are not disintermediated, and that SAMA retains regulatory and data oversight.

Currently, there are about a dozen digital wallet apps available in Saudi Arabia. The biggest players include STC Pay, a subsidiary of the largest telecom company in the region serving 12 million customers; urpay, a rapidly growing digital wallet with over 6.5 million users; and tiqmo, a subsidiary of investment conglomerate Ajlan and Bros Holding Company serving about 2.5 million users.

Wealthtech poised for continued growth

Saudi Arabia’s young, affluent, and digitally native population, combined with a national push to increase household savings, is creating fertile ground for wealthtech adoption. Robo-advisory platforms, in particular, have already demonstrated clear demand.

Assets under management (AUM) through robo-advisory platforms reached SAR 4.3 billion (US$1.2 billion) by H1 2025, with around 400,000 portfolios, according to Argaam, a Saudi financial news portal. These figures mark a 90% increase in AUM and a 54% increase in portfolios year-over-year (YoY).

Despite this growth, wealthtech adoption remains limited. Saudi Arabia’s wealthtech market claimed 432,000 retail customers, and 18,490 qualified clients in H1 2025. With a total population of about 35 million, this suggests that robo-advisory platforms had fewer than 2% penetration of the adult population in that time.

In comparison, digital wallets in Saudi Arabia had 14.4 million active customers in 2024. In the buy now, pay later (BNPL) market, Saudi leader Tamara estimates that 33% of the domestic population is registered on BNPL platforms.

Beyond low penetration, a report by Tenity, an early-stage fintech investor and accelerator, in collaboration with The Majlis, highlights that the wealthtech market remains fragmented and dominated by single-product offerings. This leaves opportunities to develop integrated comprehensive, Shariah-compliant wealth platforms that go beyond robo-advisory and financial education to offer fractional investing, private credit access, and global diversification within a unified digital experience. Such platforms could also be tailored to underserved segments, including women and foreign workers.

These opportunities align with broader industry sentiment. A quantitative survey conducted as part of the Tenity and The Majlis report polled over 29 fintech industry participants in Saudi Arabia, and found that 66% of respondents identified wealthtech and investment platforms as the fintech segment with the highest growth potential for 2025-2027.

Currently, 13 fintech companies in Saudi Arabia are authorized to provide robo-advisory services, according to Argaam. However, only a handful have reached notable scale. These include Abyan Capital, the country’s first robo-advisor focused on automated, Shariah-compliant investing, with over SAR 1.4 billion (US$373 million) in deposits and more than 100,000 portfolios; and Malaa, a wealthtech and personal finance platform offering budgeting, savings, and automated investing, with over SAR 2.5 billion (US$667 million) in total investments to date.

SMEs present new opportunities in alternative lending

In Saudi Arabia, BNPL platforms have achieved massive customer acquisition, and the focus is now shifting toward retention, wallet expansion, and integration with broader fintech services.

According to global management consulting and investment firm Redseer, churn has become a key challenge in the sector. After five to six years, many BNPL users migrate to new platforms or revert to traditional credit solutions.

To retain these maturing users, BNPL platforms need to evolve beyond a single-product, affiliate model to a full marketplace model. This will require them to increase merchant tie-ups, offer broader fintech solutions, and integrate e-commerce directly into their apps and websites, Redseer says.

Consumer BNPL growth will also hinge on capturing spending beyond just e-commerce. This will require integrating BNPL into everyday transactions like groceries, healthcare, and travel.

As the consumer market matures, the next growth frontier lies in the SME and corporates segment, according to the Tenity and The Majlis report. Currently, there is an estimated US$80 million funding gap for SMEs and microbusinesses, and lending and alternative credit solutions are well positioned to address this demand.

The report highlights the potential of using artificial intelligence (AI) and digital finance to improve credit access and supply chain financing for SMEs in Saudi Arabia. In particular, it emphasizes building AI-powered credit models that leverage transaction data, e-invoicing, and supply chain information to accurately assess creditworthiness.

The report also cites international examples, such as China’s Ant Group “Ant Double Chain,” which uses blockchain to transfer the creditworthiness of large companies to their suppliers, and Brazil’s real-time payment system Pix and Open Finance, which enable AI-driven SME lending using real-time transaction data.

In 2024, BNPL platforms accounted for over 20% of total online retail transaction value in Saudi Arabia, according to Redseer, with Tabby and Tamara together commanding over 95% of BNPL transaction volumes in the country.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Middle East, based on images by Ibrahim Abdullah via Unsplash, and abshubo via Freepik