Riyadh, September 15, 2025: Saudi Arabia has just made a big leap toward a cashless future. During the Money20/20 Middle East event in Riyadh, the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) officially introduced Google Pay, with plans also in place to roll out Alipay+ in 2026. These changes are happening under the Mada payments network and are part of the Kingdom’s broader push under Vision 2030 to modernize its financial system.
SAMA Governor Ayman Al-Sayari noted that the fintech sector has grown rapidly—he said the number of fintech companies shot up from 82 at the end of 2022 to about 281 by August of this year. He described this expansion as “in keeping with our national ambitions and commitment to global excellence.”
He pointed out that digital payments are becoming the norm: “Electronic payments … accounted for 79 percent of total retail payments in 2024, while the total number of electronic payments transactions grew to 12.6 billion … up from 10.8 billion in 2023.”
According to Google’s announcement, the roll-out of Google Pay (via Google Wallet) will let users in Saudi Arabia add their Mada debit or credit cards, and use “Tap to Pay” at stores, and soon also in apps and online. They emphasized safety, using tokenization so that sensitive card info isn’t exposed during transactions.
SAMA said that enabling Alipay+ will allow visitors using global digital wallets connected to Alipay+ to make “advanced and secure payments at participating merchants.”
All this comes against solid data backing the move. Electronic or non-cash payments made up 79% of total retail payments in 2024, up from 70% in 2023. The growth wasn’t just in percentage terms; transaction volume rose significantly too (12.6 billion vs. 10.8 in the previous year).
Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan also hung some of this success on the policy framework in place. At the same event, he said that the financial market is among the fastest-growing globally, having attracted about SR 9 billion (≈US$2.39 billion) in investments so far in the fintech sector.
