Saudi Arabia is looking to nearly triple the number of fintech companies operating there by 2025 as part of its recently announced fintech strategy implementation plan, the kingdom’s Saudi Gazette reported.
The kingdom will also aim to increase digital transactions to 70 percent in three years under the plan announced by the Financial Sector Development Program (FSDP).
The moves are in line with Saudi’s Vision 2030 that looks to diverse the country’s economy away from oil through improving ease of doing business, creating avenues for investment, and ultimately boosting non-oil sectors in the economy, including the digital economy.
Minister of Finance and Chairman of FSDP Committee, Mohammed Al-Jadaan said that innovation offered by the fintech sector in the kingdom through developing technology-based financial services and solutions will contribute to enabling many sectors including retail, hospitality, real estate, investment, transportation, and healthcare, Saudi Gazette reported.
Innovation in these sectors will contribute to increasing assets under management to reach 50 percent by 2030, aiming at the utilisation of artificial intelligence in the financial services sector.
He added that the Kingdom ranked 36th out of 63 countries in 2021 World Digital Competitiveness Index, the second among G20 countries in 2021 the Digital Competitiveness Report, and the 41st out of 132 countries in the Global Talent Competitiveness Index 2021.
