The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has revealed that the total number of Point of Sale (PoS) terminals in the Kingdom has surpassed 1 million, with the terminals deployed across the country reaching over 180 cities and villages.
Commenting on this achievement SAMA stated that it is the result of the strategic plan which was implemented in partnership with the financial sector during the past few years.
Saudi Arabia has made huge investments to develop the payments infrastructure and improve the regulatory frameworks. With all the strategic actions, the Kingdom intends to stimulate the private sector towards expanding, innovating and offering financial services to new stakeholders.
PoS terminals are considered as a crucial means to achieve one of the major strategic goals of the Financial Sector Development Program for the growth of payment digitalization and manage to increase deployment across all commercial sectors in the Kingdom.
The efforts by ‘Saudi Payments’ in terms of developing and operating the infrastructure and enabling financial institutions to offer the latest digital payment technologies also had a significant impact on this achievement as one of the contributing partners in this vital sector for the advancement of payments.
Mr. Ziad Alyousef, Deputy Governor for Development and Technology, remarked that the number of PoS terminals in the Kingdom reflects the increase in both customers’ and merchants’ trust in relying on digital payment methods for their daily transactions.
The year 2021 witnessed a growth in PoS terminals exceeding 40 percent, as the number of terminals increased from 721,000 at the end of 2020 to more than one million by the end of 2021.
Mr. Alyousef pointed out that several factors have contributed to these increases, which includes the cooperation with government entities, the public awareness on the importance of digital payments, the increase in the number of companies providing payment services, enabling the licensing process at the beginning of 2020, as well as the provision of new services, such as Mobile Payments and Soft PoS.
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