Lean Technologies has received a major payment institution licence from the Saudi Central Bank, known as SAMA, becoming the first formally licensed open banking provider in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Lean's chief executive and co-founder, Hisham Al-Falih, said the licence gives the company the regulatory standing to extend the reach of its infrastructure to thousands of merchants, tens of thousands of SMEs and millions of end users across the Kingdom. By receiving SAMA's formal authorisation as a payment institution, Lean moves from operating as a technical service provider in SAMA's open banking regulatory sandbox, which it joined in 2022, to holding a payment institution licence.
OPEN BANKING INFRASTRUCTURE FOR THE KINGDOM
Lean's platform provides the application programming interface infrastructure that allows banks, fintechs, and other businesses to connect with customers' financial data — with explicit customer consent — in order to deliver services such as account verification, payment initiation, and data-driven credit assessment.
Saudi Arabia's open banking regulatory framework has been taking shape over recent years under SAMA's direction, with the regulator having published open banking rules that define the obligations governing data sharing between licensed providers and financial institutions.
CREDIT AND DATA PRODUCTS TO EXPAND
With the SAMA licence in place, Lean intends to expand access to credit and data-driven financial products across Saudi Arabia.