Saudi Arabia has taken a major step in its ambitions to create a digital economy by launching a real-time payments system built by Mastercard-owned Vocalink.
Run by Saudi Payments, a unit of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, the system will enable account-to-account payments to be made instantly between financial institutions, businesses and consumers.
Vocalink says that the technology will positively impact the Kingdom's economy, significantly speeding up digital commerce and enabling fintechs and financial institutions to take advantage of the benefits of a digital economy.
For consumers and businesses, the platform will enable credit transfers, e-invoicing and billing, real-time payment acknowledgement, remittances and bulk payments instantly. The technology will also enable instant, mobile-based P2P money transfers between friends and family.
Ziad Bin Bandar Al-Yousef, MD, Saudi Payments, says: "We believe the Kingdoms’ consumers and businesses will benefit tremendously from leveraging the power of real-time payments and help the Kingdom to a smooth transition to the digital economy."