Moyasar obtains major e-money license from the Saudi central bank

Moyasar has received a major e-money license from the Saudi Central Bank. Moyasar Financial Company announced that it obtained the Major Electronic Money Institution license from SAMA on 25 October 2026. The Major EMI license is one of the key regulatory licenses issued by SAMA. It allows an institution to issue electronic money, operate digital wallets, provide merchant payment services and handle transfers under SAMA supervision. Under SAMA rules a Major EMI has no stated aggregate ceiling on outstanding e-money or monthly payment value, a per-user holding and monthly transaction cap of SAR 100,000, and a minimum initial capital requirement of SAR 10 million. A Micro EMI is limited to SAR 10 million average outstanding e-money and SAR 20,000 per-user caps. Both categories must be joint stock companies. The license fee for a Major EMI is SAR 50,000. Abdulaziz Al-Shetwi, co-founder and chief executive of Moyasar, said obtaining the license represents a significant milestone and reflects the company’s commitment to operating under the highest regulatory standards while supporting the future of financial technology in Saudi Arabia. Moyasar was founded in Riyadh in 2015 by Saudi engineers. It received a payment services license from SAMA in 2022 and later held a Major Payment Institution license. The company launched its Moyasar Payment Gateway in 2025 and has enabled services including Mada Online and Apple Pay. It was also the first provider in Saudi Arabia to enable Samsung Pay for online payments, according to a company co-founder. Moyasar has not published the date the license was formally granted or the capital it has now committed against the SAR 10 million requirement. Those details would show the regulatory timeline and the balance-sheet strength supporting the higher limits. The company has not published the volume of e-money it currently holds or the number of merchants and end users it serves under its existing payment licenses. SAMA has not published a list of other companies that hold a Major EMI license. Electronic payments accounted for 85 percent of the Kingdom’s retail transactions in 2025, according to SAMA. For Saudi merchants and platforms the practical change is a licensed provider that can issue electronic money and operate wallets at higher per-user limits. The value depends on whether Moyasar uses the license to launch new wallet or stored-value products or continues to operate mainly as a payment gateway. Moyasar has not published a product roadmap or a launch date for any new service enabled by the Major EMI license. In 2024 the company raised SAR 78.75 million in its first external funding round. Jahez is both a major customer and an investor. Other Saudi Fintechs have also received payment and e-money licenses from SAMA. Moyasar pairs an existing Major Payment Institution license with the new Major EMI license. The company has not published a comparison of its current transaction volume with the higher limits allowed under the Major EMI or the share of its revenue that comes from gateway fees versus any stored-value activity. It already supplies payment infrastructure to regional platforms operating across more than 10 Middle Eastern and North African markets. The announcement does not list the specific services Moyasar will offer under the new license or the number of customers already onboarded that could use a wallet product. Those details would show the immediate commercial use of the license. Without them the license remains a description of regulatory permission rather than a measured expansion of product range. Moyasar has also received in-principle approvals for payment licenses in the UAE. If Moyasar publishes the volume of e-money outstanding, the number of active wallet users and the first products launched under the Major EMI license, the license has a measurable follow-through. If the next update is only a restatement of the license award, the change for the market remains the same as the initial announcement. The figures missing are e-money outstanding and new product launch dates.