Visa expands its Saudi payments infrastructure with locally hosted acceptance platform

• World-first: Visa Acceptance Platform now hosted on local cloud in Saudi Arabia
• Gives merchants in Saudi Arabia local access to CyberSource for payment processing, fraud management and other solutions 
• Supports mada card payments and advances Saudi Vision 2030’s digital economy goals

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, September 15, 2025: Visa, a global leader in digital payments, today announced that the Visa Acceptance Platform is now hosted on local cloud in Saudi Arabia — a world‑first implementation by Visa — in alignment with the Saudi Central Bank “SAMA” mandate.  

This means Saudi businesses will be able to accept payments faster and more securely on CyberSource, a Visa Acceptance Platform offering, all through a single integration.  Visa’s move will make it easier for businesses in the Kingdom to offer their customers frictionless, secure digital payments experiences central to Saudi Vision 2030's goal of building a globally competitive digital economy.

The platform supports a range of transaction types essential for modern commerce, such as authorization followed by capture (two-stage), card-on-file, and recurring payments for mada cards, which will be available once Visa completes certification with the new eCommerce payments interface launched by the Saudi Central Bank “SAMA”. Merchants, payment service providers, and acquirers in Saudi Arabia can also enable digital wallet recurring transactions, meeting the rising demand for secure and flexible payment options.

“Hosting the Visa Acceptance Platform locally underscores the continued investment in our payments infrastructure in Saudia Arabia and reflects our commitment to innovating new ways to better serve our local merchant partners,” said Ali Bailoun, Visa’s Regional General Manager for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. “With Saudi Arabia already reaching 79% non-cash transactions, Visa’s expanded local payments infrastructure will help drive the next phase of growth to support Vision 2030’s digital economy ambitions.”

The Visa Acceptance 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.

“Once integrated with the new eCommerce payments interface, the Visa Acceptance Platform will be able to give banks, PSPs and merchants faster, more reliable, and fully compliant payment processing,” said Rob Cameron, Global Head of Acceptance Solutions at Visa. “Merchants will be able to boost approval rates, offer mada and digital wallets for recurring and one-off payments, and deliver a smoother checkout for consumers.”

With these advancements, Visa reaffirms its role as a trusted partner in Saudi Arabia’s rapidly evolving digital economy, empowering local merchants with innovative, secure, and future-proof payment solutions that drive growth and support the Kingdom’s vision for digital payments.