The Headline
Key Takeaways
- Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector grew 23% in three months (301 → 371 companies), confirmed directly by SAMA Governor Ayman Al-Sayari.
- Electronic payments already account for 85% of Saudi retail transactions, as of end-2025.
- At the current quarterly growth rate, the sector could reach its 2030 target of 525 companies by roughly Q1 2027, years ahead of schedule.
- For Australian firms, the practical opportunity is about picking the right partner among an already-large and fast-growing field.
Fintech Passes 371 Companies
Saudi Central Bank Governor Ayman Al-Sayari announced at Money20/20 Middle East in Riyadh that the Kingdom’s fintech sector had reached 371 companies by the end of August, big number, a 23% increase from the 301 companies reported in May. Al-Sayari described it as exceptional growth, pointing to the scale of activity across payments, insurance technology, digital banking and alternative investments. The target of National Fintech Strategy is having 525 active companies targeted by 2030, and meanwhile electronic payments already account for 85% of retail transactions in the Kingdom as of the end of 2025, a very impressive sign of how far the shift away from cash has already progressed till now.
Two New Fintech Unicorns, in the Same Week
This week Saudi fintech barq closed a $329.5 million Series A at a $1.85 billion valuation, backed by Noon Investments, Sohar International Bank and M20 Fund and Tabby, raised $233 million in a Series F led by Blue Pool Capital, alongside HSG, Wellington Management and Arbor Ventures, at a $6.5 billion valuation. Tabby now reports 25 million registered users, 70,000 business partners and more than $18 billion in annualized transaction volume, and is expanding beyond BNPL into credit and money-management products.
Two other deals from the same week round out the picture, Tarabut secured $50 million from Riyad Bank and other institutions to deepen its Saudi embedded-finance push, and Saudi fintech Lendo partnered with Austria’s Quantic Financial Solutions on a $200 million institutional program for SME working-capital financing.
Reading Between the Numbers
At its current quarterly pace, Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector is growing far faster than it needs to hit its own 2030 target. Compounding the May–August growth rate (23% per quarter) forward, 371 companies would reach 525 in roughly five months, around Q1 2027, nearly four years ahead of the stated 2030 goal. That gap likely means one of two things happened in this progress, either this quarter’s growth was an unusually active licensing wave that won’t repeat every quarter, or Saudi Arabia’s fintech ambitions are already running ahead of the official target and a revised, higher goal is coming, which the Kingdom has followed the same pattern before with other Vision 2030 milestones. Either very strong signal for investors that the addressable fintech market in Saudi Arabia is larger, sooner, than the official roadmap currently states.
What This Means for Bilateral Investors
A fintech sector this size, growing this fast, changes what market entry looks like for Australian firms. Electronic payments already cover 85% of Saudi retail transactions, which means the infrastructure Australian paytech, insurtech and digital banking companies would need to plug into such as licensed rails, established consumer adoption, regulatory clarity, is largely already built. That’s a different proposition than entering a market where digital infrastructure is still being constructed. For ASBCF’s audience, the practical question shifts from “is Saudi Arabia ready for fintech partnerships” to “which of the 371 companies is the right one to partner with, license through, or invest alongside.”
ASBCF has already been tracking pieces of this shift, from SAMA’s Google Pay rollout to the Australia–Saudi fintech initiative piloting cross-border payments, both signs the infrastructure layer is already being built. You can read them all in the ASBCF news section.
