Saudi Arabia reports ‘phenomenal’ increase in NFC mobile payments

Saudi Payments contactless and NFC payments graphic
GROWTH: 25% of all point of sale transactions in Saudi Arabia are now NFC mobile payments

NFC mobile payments accounted for 25% of overall POS transaction volumes in Saudi Arabia in September, Saudi Payments reports.

Overall, consumers in Saudi Arabia made more than 266m contactless payments, worth a total of SAR27.5bn (US$7.32bn), in September 2020 and more than nine out of ten POS transactions made in the country during September were contactless.

The number of mada contactless payments cards in circulation in the country has also now topped 22m, the Saudi national payment infrastructure operator adds.

“The growth in digital and mobile payments has outstripped expectations,” says managing director of Saudi Payments Fahad Al-Akeel.

“In September 2020, 91% of transactions were contactless, compared with 66% in 2019. There are also now over 614,000 POS terminals across the country, 96% of which are NFC enabled.”

“The huge growth this year in digital and mobile payments could be attributed to Covid-19 and cardholders increasingly turning to online shopping and preferring to use cards and mobile at [the] POS instead of cash,” Al-Akeel adds.

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