Norwegian-based virtual bank Contopronto is launching its mobile-based payment technology in Saudi Arabia through a partnership with local payments processing company Zafa.
Zafa has applied to the Kingdom's Monetary Authority for an e-money licence and will launch its mobile payments services using Contopronto's technology.
The Saudi e-money licence will be similar to one awarded to Contopronto in January which allows for payments and money transfers to anywhere in the European Union via mobile phones.
Knut Brundtland, chairman of the Contopronto board of directors says: "This agreement is Contopronto's first outside Europe, and represents another step in Contopronto's world wide roll out plan."
Contopronto says the banking infrastructure in Saudi Arabia is well advanced and there are more than eight million mobile phones in circulation in the Kingdom compared to 3.4 million fixed land lines.