Mastercard & Jeel team up to modernise payments in Saudi Arabia

By Gloria Methri

Mastercard and Jeel, a subsidiary of Riyad Bank, have joined forces to enable digital solutions, including AI, to drive innovation in Saudi Arabia.

Introducing a novel offering to the Kingdom, the collaboration will see the two entities work together to serve all non-banking financial institutions (NBFI) market segments. This will provide seamless access to new digital use cases, such as Mastercard Card-as-a-Service (CaaS) and Bank-as-a-FinTech (BaaF) propositions, to Saudi Arabia.

“We are very pleased to be working closely with Mastercard to empower new market segments and demographics with access to Mastercard’s diverse range of innovative offerings and benefits,” said George Harrak, CEO of Jeel. “We aim to offer these propositions in several pricing schemes such as pay-as-you-grow subscriptions, making them as easily accessible as possible — in weeks as opposed to months. Ultimately, we believe this agreement will help support Jeel’s technological advancements in delivering cutting-edge solutions that shape the demand for technology in Saudi Arabia.”

“We are very much driven by our determination to advance innovative infrastructure and develop ecosystems that boost the Kingdom’s prospects and transform its digital economy,” said Gaurang Shah, Executive Vice President of Product and Engineering, EEMEA, Mastercard.  “As part of this mission, we strive to pioneer market-ready services and responsive platforms that cater to consumers’ needs. Our collaboration with Jeel will further enable us to curate an advanced suite of novel solutions that advance the wider ecosystem in Saudi Arabia and beyond.”

This collaboration aims to bring unprecedented benefits to a wide range of stakeholders. It will empower non-banking financial institutions to bring innovative products to the market swiftly and efficiently with greater ease and peace of mind.

FinTech companies can expect faster time to market by solving obstacles of BIN sponsorship and Mastercard digital first issuing assets access. As a result, consumers will also be empowered with greater choices, including a wider range of bundled digital financial products.