Saudi Arabia: Card payment provider American Express has achieved a 180 percent increase in its point-of-sale acceptance in Saudi Arabia over the past two years, according to CEO Fahad Mubarak Al-Guthami. 

The company aims to reach 90 percent coverage by the end of 2025. 

Speaking on the sidelines of the 24 Fintech conference in Riyadh, Al-Guthami said that this growth aligns with Saudi Arabia’s goal to achieve 70 percent non-cash transactions by 2030, under the Financial Sector Development Program. 

“Right now, many places around the Kingdom are accepting American Express…it’s part of our strategy,” Al-Guthami told Arab News. 

He revealed that the company’s strategy, which began about two years ago, involved partnering with banks to integrate American Express into their systems. 

“In 2024, we’ve already increased the number of points of sale accepting American Express by 180 percent. Our objective is to reach 90 percent by the end of 2025,” Al-Guthami said. 

“We want to be leading for the global American Express and the local as well,” he added. 

On small and medium enterprises, Al-Guthami said: “Globally, we’ve been very strong with SMEs. In Saudi Arabia, as part of our strategy, the key is to ensure we have acceptance across the country. This will give SMEs the opportunity to use either digital or plastic cards for any purchases they want.” 

He added that SMEs value transaction transparency, audit compliance, and return on investment. “So, all of that is something that we’re building on based on what we have already. So, it’s nothing new; it’s just a tweak and we already started that journey,” the CEO added.

Regarding fintechs, he said that they fundamentally represent innovation and one could either develop solutions independently or partner with a fintech. 

For instance, he said applications and data analytics are examples of fintech solutions, with the company managing these aspects in-house. 

“But then, if I go into the open banking area, I can integrate; it’s faster speed to market and provides us a win-win situation. It gives us access to all financial institutions at the press of a button, and we get access to the customers so we can service them better,” Al-Guthami said. 

He added that the same principles apply to personal finance management. These features allow users to view their spending on the application’s dashboard and analyze their expenditures. He explained that while they have the data, the challenge is to analyze and present it in an attractive way for the customer. 

The 24 Fintech conference, co-organized by Tahaluf — a joint venture between Informa PLC, the Saudi Federation for Cybersecurity, Programming and Drones, and the Events Investment Fund — aims to establish Saudi Arabia as a global fintech leader in line with Vision 2030.