Riyadh Bank has launched a 100 million Saudi riyals ($26.7 million) program to invest in financial technology startups, the bank announced at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) in Saudi Arabia.

“Riyad Bank launches a Digital partnership program, with an investment of 100 Million Saudi Riyals in FinTech startups,” the bank tweeted through its official twitter account.

The Saudi bank, which is in merger talks with to merge with National Commercial Bank, reported this week a 59 per cent year-on-year increase in its net profit for the third quarter of this year. Read more here

Saudi Arabia joined the race to promote fintech ecosystem following other Gulf countries such as UAE and Bahrain, after Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) launched Fintech Saudi in April 2018, which is an initiative to catalyze the development of fintech industry in the kingdom.

Earlier this year, the Saudi central bank announced the start of the design of a regulatory sandbox environment that allows local and international financial technology firms to test new digital solutions. Read more here

(Writing by Nada Al Rifai nada.rifai@refinitiv.com, editing by Seban Scaria)

 

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