Visa Announces Future of Retail Roadmap for Saudi Arabia 

Ali Bailoun, Visa's Regional General Manager for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman, said: “Our efforts are part of Visa's broader strategy to support Saudi Arabia’s digital commerce agenda. Visa’s payments leadership in the Kingdom is a testament to our unwavering dedication to developing a robust, secure, and innovative payments infrastructure that benefits Saudi consumers, businesses, and the wider economy. We are delighted to make this announcement and for the opportunity to contribute even more to the Saudi economy’s digital transformation.”

Visa’s Future of Retail roadmap leverages Visa Acceptance Solutions to support Saudi-based businesses of all sizes with new and improved commerce experiences including:

• Improved access to and ease of integration with partners: Visa Acceptance Platform is debuting AI-powered Developer Assist to help partners develop sophisticated payment flows, answer questions on testing and certification and even suggest sample code. In Saudi Arabia, it will be integrated with Saudi Payments Gateway (SPG), ensuring clients have access to the latest features and services on Visa Acceptance Platform while remaining compliant with local regulations. The platform is used by more than 450 payment service providers (PSPs) and connects to over 100 independent software vendors (ISVs), bringing ease of use to over 450,000 active merchants each month across 160 countries using 50 different currencies¹. It offers services to create custom solutions across multiple verticals, including retail, hospitality, telecom, mass transit, and so on. 
• Growing mobile acceptance, without additional hardware: While Saudi Arabia’s adoption of contactless payments is among the highest globally, accounting for 98% of all in-store digital payment transactions, there remains a significant proportion of cash transactions in the Kingdom. According to Visa's ‘Where Cash Hides’ survey, around 20% of respondents in Saudi Arabia still conduct their transactions in cash, particularly for peer-to-peer and everyday spending². Addressing this opportunity to further displace cash and increase card acceptance, Visa launched "Tap to Phone" in Saudi Arabia in 2021 in collaboration with Saudi Payments. The low-cost acceptance solution allows sellers to accept contactless payments using a certified smartphone and is live in 121 countries with more than 6.7 million active terminals and more than $8.5 billion in payment volume on a 12-month basis³. Visa is also deploying contactless technology from Tap to Phone in new innovative ways, including the recent pilot in Latin America and the Caribbean that allows consumers to tap their cards to their own device in order to pay for online purchases.

In May at its annual Visa Payments Forum for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, Visa unveiled a suite of new products and services. Key solutions like Click to Pay, Visa Flexible Credential, and Visa Payment Passkey Service are part of these innovations which are designed to further improve acceptance innovation across the region. These advancements will also soon be introduced in Saudi Arabia to further drive innovation in the digital payments infrastructure in alignment with the Kingdom vision to enhance the payment ecosystem. 

“According to a new Visa study, 80% of shoppers we surveyed in Saudi Arabia turned to digital features – including eCommerce - when they made their last purchase, a trend which is expected to grow. This is indicative of consumers’ confidence in and preference for digital payments. To keep pace with this trend, more merchants are looking for solutions to help them better deliver the digitally evolved experiences Saudi consumers increasingly expect and deserve,” said Bailoun. 

One Expansive Ecosystem to Open Possibilities for Connectivity

Visa Acceptance Solutions offers a level of connectivity and flexibility that businesses can’t build on their own without heavy technology investment, underscoring the importance of integrating digital and physical retail. As a part of Visa’s value-added services, cloud-ready solutions like the Visa Acceptance Platform and Visa’s Tap to Phone payment solution have helped clients scale their businesses and tailor their payment systems to meet consumer needs. 

To learn more, visit Visa Acceptance Solutions.

About Visa 

Visa (NYSE: V) is a world leader in digital payments, facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, convenient, reliable and secure payments network, enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. We believe that economies that include everyone everywhere, uplift everyone everywhere and see access as foundational to the future of money movement. Learn more at Visa.com.

Media Contact   
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Shirin Zemmo | [email protected]  

¹ As of March 2024

² https://sa.visamiddleeast.com/en_SA/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases/prl-13122023.html 

³ As of March 2024