Saudi Arabia's largest banks are accelerating their push into open banking through acquisitions and partnerships rather than building capabilities in-house, with Riyad Bank, the Saudi National Bank, and Banque Saudi Fransi collectively collaborating with eleven fintech companies to advance API integration and acquire digital talent. The wave of activity, which gathered pace across 2024 and into 2025, reflects a structural shift in how established Saudi lenders are approaching technological transformation in a market that has moved faster than almost any other towards cashless payments.
The kingdom's broader digital finance landscape provides context for the urgency. Saudi Arabia recorded a cashless transaction rate of 79% in 2024, surpassing its own Vision 2030 target for 2025 a full year ahead of schedule. The number of operational Saudi fintechs reached 224 by the middle of 2024, exceeding the government's 168-firm target well before the planned deadline. Against this backdrop, the pace of open banking adoption is becoming a competitive battleground on which established banks cannot afford to fall behind.
BUYING RATHER THAN BUILDING DIGITAL CAPABILITIES
The decision by Riyad Bank, SNB, and Banque Saudi Fransi to partner with and acquire fintech firms rather than develop open banking infrastructure entirely in-house reflects a calculation about speed and specialisation. Building API layers, data-sharing frameworks, and digital talent pipelines organically takes time that the competitive environment may not permit, particularly as newer digital challengers expand their share of retail and business payments. Each of the three banks has taken a different approach to which fintechs it partners with, reflecting their distinct strategic priorities and client bases.
The focus on API integration is especially significant. Open banking in Saudi Arabia requires financial institutions to connect their core systems to third-party developers through standardised interfaces, enabling new products such as account aggregation, instant credit scoring, and automated payment initiation. By acquiring or partnering with fintechs that have already built these capabilities, the banks can compress the time needed to meet regulatory standards and deliver client-facing products to the 79% of consumers who now conduct transactions digitally.
Digital talent acquisition forms the other pillar of the strategy. Saudi banks face competition for engineers, data scientists, and product managers not only from global technology firms operating in the kingdom, but also from the expanding domestic fintech sector itself. Bringing in proven teams alongside their technology through acquisitions or structured partnerships offers a more reliable route to capability-building than hiring into a competitive labour market.
OPEN BANKING AS STRATEGIC INFRASTRUCTURE
The Saudi Central Bank, known as SAMA, has been advancing an open banking framework that sets technical and regulatory standards for data sharing between licensed institutions and authorised third parties. The framework is part of a wider effort to modernise the financial sector in support of Vision 2030's economic diversification objectives, and banks that establish robust open banking capabilities early stand to benefit from first-mover advantages in product design and customer data insights.
For Riyad Bank, SNB, and Banque Saudi Fransi, positioning within this framework carries significant competitive implications. Banks that embed their products within third-party platforms and establish their APIs as the preferred integration points for the fintech ecosystem will be better placed to capture customer relationships as digital financial services continue to expand. The 224 operational fintechs in Saudi Arabia by mid-2024 represent both potential partners and potential competitors, making strategic alignment with the right players a priority.
The combined partnerships across the three banks also send a signal to international investors and fintech developers about the seriousness with which Saudi Arabia's banking establishment is approaching the open banking opportunity. As the kingdom positions Riyadh as a regional financial centre, the openness of its banking infrastructure to third-party innovation will be an important factor in attracting technology talent and capital to the sector.