Saudi Payments, under the supervision of the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) announced the launch of Saudi Arabia’s instant payments system ‘sarie’ in cooperation with IBM and Mastercard.
‘sarie’ now supports all Saudi banks across the Kingdom and is available for use by their customers.
It allows bank customers to send and receive money in real-time using a wider range of services and transfer options.
Customers of local banks can make instant transactions of up to SAR 20,000 (USD 5,300) through the system.
Furthermore, “sarie” users can benefit from the quick transfer service to send up to SAR 2,500 (USD 660) using aliases, such as mobile number, email address, ID number, or IBAN number.
Saudi Payments has successfully rolled out ‘sarie’ across all banks operating locally, using the most advanced technology built on the latest ISO 20022 messaging standards.
The system is expected to support local government, business, and consumer payment needs across various payment flows.
Saudi Payments selected IBM Global Business Services (GBS), the services and consultancy arm of IBM, to lead the project as the System Integrator (SI) partner and end-to-end digital payments solutions provider.
IBM GBS designed and architected the solution through its complex system integration methodology, built a technical platform and integrated Mastercard’s instant payments platform into Saudi Payments’ existing infrastructure while connecting it to the IT systems of locally operating banks.
Mastercard’s secure real-time payment technology was selected for the rollout by Saudi Payments, enabling people and businesses in the Kingdom to send money instantly.
Fahad Al-Akeel, Managing Director at Saudi Payments said,
“The instant payments system ‘sarie’ can enable us to drive usage and engagement across the Saudi payments ecosystem of banks and businesses.
It can help lay the foundation for new payments business initiatives, encouraging financial inclusion and banking reconciliation of Saudi banks.”
Featured image credit: edited from Unsplash
