Riyadh - Sharikat Mubasher: The fintech industry in Saudi Arabia secured investments amounting to SAR 2.7 billion through 28 equity funding rounds in 2023, showing a 77.9% increase from SAR 1.5 billion in 2022.

The Annual Fintech Report 2023, released by Fintech Saudi, showed that fintech companies raised venture debt funding totaling SAR 5.4 billion in the same year.

The cumulative value for investments raised by fintech firms reached SAR 6.9 billion, showing an 830% jump from the initial 2023 goal of SAR 742 million and surpassing the target set for 2025.

The fintech industry contributed SAR 3.05 million to the national gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, up 39% from the initial 2023 goal of SAR 2.211 million.

Number of fintech firms

In 2023, 69 new firms entered the fintech sector, raising the total number of fintech firms in the Kingdom to 216, while the number of direct jobs in the sector touched 6,726.

The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) licensed 18 new fintech firms in 2023, bringing the total number of licensed and authorized fintech firms operating under the apex bank to 113. Around 5,973 direct jobs were created by SAMA-regulated fintech firms.

Key statistics

The value of local and international transfers made from electronic money institutions (EMI) digital wallets touched SAR 75 billion, while the value of point-of-sale (PoS) transactions processed by payment fintech firms reached SAR 614 billion in 2023.

The total value of e-commerce transactions processed by payment fintech firms registered SAR 406.9 billion in the previous year.

Moreover, the gross merchandise value of goods sold with buy now, pay later (BNPL) schemes recorded SAR 26.6 billion in 2023.