SAMA

The Saudi Central Bank (formerly Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority — the acronym SAMA stuck) is the regulator for banking, payments, insurance, and finance companies operating in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. SAMA’s Open Banking framework and Payment Services Provider (PSP) regime are the two pieces of its rulebook most directly relevant to FintechPays’ KSA cells: business-banking, money-transfer, BNPL, and the rapidly expanding neobank cohort.

For affiliate-program coverage, SAMA matters in a structurally different way than the UAE regulators. Crypto in KSA sits in a documented grey zone: SAMA has not authorised retail crypto services, and exchanges that operate “in KSA” in any product sense do so via Bahrain (CBB) or UAE (VARA) licences rather than a SAMA licence. We reflect this honestly in every Saudi-targeted program review — a “served in KSA” claim with no SAMA licence is not the same as a licensed Saudi service, and we say so.

For licensed segments, SAMA’s PSP framework is the gating regulator for non-bank money-movement programs (analogous to the UK FCA’s EMI permissions). The BNPL framework — first published in 2023 — is one of the most prescriptive in the region and notably restricts the affiliate-commission language a covered firm can use. Where a program holds a SAMA PSP, BNPL, or finance-company licence, FintechPays cites the licence type in the trust band and verifies the licensee against SAMA’s public register before publishing.