Over roughly a century, payment in Saudi Arabia evolved from carrying silver riyals to tapping a card, bringing a phone close to a terminal, and making instant transfers. In 2025, electronic payments accounted for 85% of the total number of individual payment transactions, while the number of electronic transactions conducted through national payment systems reached approximately 14.6 billion. But this is not only a story about technology; it is a story about how the movement of money became faster, easier, and less dependent on cash.

About a century ago, the question when buying a good in the markets of the Arabian Peninsula was not, “Should I pay by card or phone?” It was more basic: What currency should I pay with?

Multiple currencies circulated in the region, from the French riyal—known as the Maria Theresa dollar—to the British pound, Indian rupee, and Ottoman and Egyptian currencies. Then came steps to unify the currency, culminating in the minting of the first Saudi Arab silver riyal in 1928 and the issuance of the “Hejaz and Nejd Monetary System,” which regulated cash transactions and abolished the use of foreign currencies.

Nearly a hundred years later, the problem had changed completely.

For many purchases, consumers no longer need to take a riyal out of their pocket. It is enough to tap a card or phone on a terminal, press a button in an app, or transfer money to someone else within seconds.

In 2025, the number of electronic payment transactions conducted through national payment systems reached approximately 14.6 billion transactions, compared with 12.6 billion in 2024. Meanwhile, the share of electronic payments rose to 85% of the total number of individual payment transactions, up from 79% one year earlier.

The distance between the silver riyal and the phone captures one of the deepest transformations in Saudi economic life: Money itself did not just change; the way money moves changed.

Money Is One Thing; Payment Is Another

To understand this journey, it is useful to distinguish between two concepts that are often confused.

Money is what we use to measure value. When we say that a coffee costs 15 riyals, the riyal is the unit of measurement and value.

Payment, on the other hand, is the method by which that value moves from the buyer to the seller.

The price of the coffee may remain 15 riyals, but those riyals can change hands in entirely different ways: in cash, by check, through a bank card, via a digital wallet, or through an instant transfer.

That is why the history of payments is not simply the history of changes in the form of money, but the history of the hidden infrastructure that moves money between people, companies, and banks.

The faster, more reliable, and less costly this infrastructure becomes, the easier it is to carry out millions of daily exchanges.

1928: In the Beginning, It Was About Trust

The first problem the emerging monetary system had to solve was not the “digitization” of payments, but their standardization.

In 1928, the first Saudi Arab silver riyal and its denominations were minted in the name of the King of Hejaz and Nejd and Dependencies, and the Hejaz and Nejd Monetary System was issued that same year. After the unification of the Kingdom, the name “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” appeared on the currency, and in 1935 the first silver riyal bearing the state’s new name was issued.

Economically, this was more than simply issuing a metal coin.

Every payment requires, above all, trust in the thing being used to pay: the seller must know the value of what they receive, and the buyer must know that what they hold will be accepted by others.

This fundamental function of money remains in place today, even though the form in which value travels from one party to another has changed.

1953: When the Weight of Money Became a Problem

Silver riyals served their purpose, but they came with an obvious practical problem: weight.

This problem was particularly evident among pilgrims, who needed to carry quantities of metal coins as they traveled. In 1953, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, later renamed the Saudi Central Bank, issued what became known as “Pilgrims’ Receipts.”

The receipts began with a denomination of ten riyals, and their value was guaranteed by the equivalent amount of silver riyals held by the agency. The receipts also featured text in multiple languages to facilitate their use among pilgrims.

The solution was simple on the surface, but it revealed a principle that would recur throughout the history of payments:

If value can be represented in a more convenient way, why carry that same value in its heavier form?

The experiment succeeded and expanded to other denominations, helping prepare society to use paper money.

On June 14, 1961, the Kingdom issued its first official banknotes in five denominations: 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100 riyals.

Money had thus moved from heavy metal to lightweight paper. But the next revolution would be greater: eliminating the need to move cash itself with every payment.

The 1980s and 1990s: The Birth of the “Roads” Money Travels On

When someone pays by card today, they see only a few seconds pass between tapping the card and seeing the message “Transaction completed.”

But behind those seconds lies an entire network of banks, systems, communication protocols, and settlement processes.

This infrastructure did not appear all at once.

In 1986, the Automated Cheque Clearing System was established. In 1990, the Saudi Payments Network, SPAN, began operating, allowing cardholders to access their accounts through the banking network. The network then expanded in 1993 to point-of-sale terminals used for money transfers. In 1997, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority launched the Saudi Arabian Rapid Transfer system, “Sarie,” for transfers and settlement between banks.

This was the fundamental shift.

With cash payment, value moves physically: the riyal leaves the buyer’s hand and enters the seller’s cash register.

With electronic payment, banknotes do not need to move at all. What moves is trusted financial information stating that a specific amount should be deducted from one account and added to another.

From there, payment systems came to resemble invisible highways for money.

Consumers cannot see them, but they rely on them every time they use their cards.

2004: The Bill Leaves the Bank Queue

One of the best examples of the impact of payment infrastructure on daily life is the “SADAD” system, launched in 2004.

Before then, bill payment depended more heavily on bank branches and separate arrangements between billers and banks. SADAD introduced a centralized platform linking billers with banks and allowing consumers to access and pay their bills through multiple channels.

The figures reveal the scale of the behavioral change.

According to a report by the Bank for International Settlements, the share of bank branches used for bill payment in Saudi Arabia fell from 73% in 2003 to 6% in 2010. During the same period, the share of online banking services used for bill payment rose from 1% to 35%.

This is not merely a story about moving from a teller’s window to a computer screen.

Economically, it is a story about removing steps from a transaction.

Consumers save the time spent traveling and waiting, billers gain a process that is easier to process and reconcile, and banks reduce their reliance on manually carrying out services in branches.

Every step removed from a process repeated millions of times can translate, across the economy, into less time and lower operating costs.

2015: The Card Becomes Part of Everyday Life

In August 2015, the Saudi Payments Network adopted its new identity, “mada,” representing an upgraded generation of the national infrastructure for card payments.

The change was not merely a name change.

As the infrastructure expanded, point-of-sale terminals began to spread more widely across everyday sectors. In 2015, the number of point-of-sale terminals rose to approximately 225,000 devices, an increase of 62.4% from the previous year, with their use expanding in gas stations, cafés, fast-food restaurants, and retail.

This highlights an important feature of the payments economy: a network becomes more useful as acceptance expands.

A card held by one million people does not deliver its full benefit if only a small number of stores accept it. Conversely, a merchant has little reason to install a payment terminal if the number of card users is limited.

But when both sides grow together—users and merchants—each side begins to increase the value of the other.

This is simply called the network effect.

That is why the shift to electronic payments does not occur merely through issuing cards; it happens when the ability to use them becomes available in the details of everyday life.

2021: Why Wait for the Money to Arrive?

Once consumers became accustomed to electronic payment, a new expectation emerged: speed.

Why can a good be purchased within seconds, while transferring money between two accounts at different banks may require waiting?

In February 2021, the Saudi Central Bank launched the instant payments system “Sarie,” making low-value transfers between local banks available instantly, around the clock, every day of the week. It also enabled the use of identifiers such as mobile numbers instead of always relying on an IBAN in some services.

The economic difference between an “electronic transfer” and an “instant transfer” may seem small to consumers, but it matters.

Money awaiting settlement cannot be used by its owner at that same moment. The shorter the time between sending money and its arrival, the more mobile liquidity becomes and the more flexible the execution of daily transactions.

That is why international institutions view instant payment systems as more than a convenience; research by the Bank for International Settlements has found that their adoption can support the uptake of other digital financial services, with network effects playing an important role in this spread.

2025: 85 Out of Every 100 Transactions

This brings us to the figure that summarizes where the Kingdom stands after this journey.

In 2025, electronic payments accounted for 85% of the total number of payment transactions conducted in the retail sector for individuals, compared with 79% in 2024.

The number of electronic payment transactions conducted through national payment systems reached approximately 14.6 billion transactions, compared with around 12.6 billion the previous year.

Here, attention should be paid to two words: number of transactions.

The 14.6 billion does not mean 14.6 billion riyals, nor does it represent the value of spending in the Kingdom. It is the number of times electronic payment transactions were carried out through national systems.

This makes the figure more significant from another perspective: electronic payment is no longer an exceptional event associated with major purchases; it has become a recurring behavior embedded in a huge number of small and large daily transactions.

Coffee, fuel, groceries, phone bills, restaurant orders, online shopping, and transfers between two people—all have become parts of one broader system.

What Did the Economy Gain from This Journey?

A century of payment development can be summed up in three things whose costs have steadily declined:

First: the cost of carrying money.
From heavy silver riyals to paper, and then to a bank balance that its owner does not need to carry physically.

Second: the cost of time.
From visiting a branch and waiting for a transaction to be processed to paying by phone and making instant transfers around the clock.

Third: the cost of coordination.
Instead of every merchant or biller establishing a separate relationship with every bank, networks and centralized platforms allow large numbers of parties to connect through shared infrastructure.

That is why payment systems are not merely a marginal banking service. The World Bank places secure, reliable, and efficient payment systems among the infrastructure that supports the digital economy, financial inclusion, and financial stability.

But the transformation also carries a parallel challenge.

As cash disappears from the scene and transactions become dependent on networks, software, and data, trust in digital infrastructure becomes more important: cybersecurity, system continuity, data protection, fraud prevention, and alternatives in the event of disruption.

Convenience is not a substitute for trust; it depends on it.

2026: What Comes After Payment Becomes Electronic?

These questions arise as Riyadh hosts Money20/20 Middle East from September 14 to 16, 2026, an event whose main themes this year include “the next era of payments.” The program focuses on topics such as real-time connectivity, interoperability between systems, trust, and payments embedded in platforms and services.

The timing reveals how the nature of the Saudi question itself has changed.

Decades ago, the question was: How do we enable people to pay electronically?

Today, now that the vast majority of individual payment transactions are electronic, the question has become more advanced:

How do we make payment faster and less visible within the consumer experience? How can money move easily between different systems and countries? How can payment services be integrated into commerce, transport, and other apps without users feeling the complexity of the infrastructure behind them? And how can this be done without sacrificing security and trust?

Even the Money20/20 agenda describes the new consumer as expecting the payment process to “disappear” within the experience—to become so fast, secure, and seamless that payment itself is no longer the most prominent step in the purchase.

This may be the next transformation.

Not the disappearance of the riyal, but the disappearance of the friction associated with using it.

About a century ago, buyers had to carry value with them in the form of a silver coin.

Then they carried it in a banknote.

Then they placed it in a bank account and used a card to access it.

Then the card moved to the phone.

And transfers began arriving within seconds.

At every stage, the riyal remained the riyal, but the distance between the decision to buy and the completion of payment became shorter.

The story of the past hundred years is therefore not merely one of replacing cash with technology. It is the story of a continual effort to make the transfer of value lighter, faster, easier, and more reliable.

From the silver riyal in 1928 to 14.6 billion electronic transactions in 2025, the means of payment changed many times.

But the need behind it did not change:

For one person to be able to transfer the value they own to another person, with confidence, in exchange for what they want to buy.