Digital banks licensed in Saudi Arabia will help improve the quality and user experience for customers in the Kingdom, supporting innovation and reducing costs. This will directly contribute to stimulating competition with local banks and financial technology companies.

The Saudi Cabinet gave its nod to the Kingdom’s finance minister to issue licenses for the country’s first digital bank, Saudi Digital Bank

Saudi Digital Bank, will be formed by investors led by Abdul Rahman bin Saad Al-Rashed and Sons Company with capital of SR1.5 billion.

Digital banks as a concept is broader and more comprehensive in providing Integrated banking products and services, such as accepting deposits, financing and other banking services through digital channels exclusively, and have different regulatory and supervisory requirements.

The new digital banks in Saudi Arabia will rank 13th among the national banks operating in the Kingdom in terms of capital, once they obtain the final license to operate.