Open Banking in Saudi Arabia 2026: New Opportunities for Fintech Apps
SAMA has started licensing open banking services. What is open banking, how does it work, and what new app opportunities does it unlock?
In short: open banking lets licensed fintech companies access a customer's bank data — with the customer's consent — or initiate payments from their account through secure APIs. In 2026 the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) began licensing fintech companies to provide these services after the sandbox phase, opening the door to a new generation of financial apps in the Kingdom.
For years, a customer's financial data stayed locked inside their bank. Open banking changes that: customers own their data and can share it with an app they trust to get a better service, from budgeting to faster financing.
How does open banking work?
SAMA's open banking framework is built on two main types of service:
- Account Information Services (AIS): reading balances and transactions with the customer's consent, to analyze them or show them in a single app.
- Payment Initiation Services (PIS): making a payment directly from the customer's account to the merchant, without a card.
All of this runs on explicit consent that the customer grants and can withdraw at any time.
New app opportunities
- Personal finance management: an app that aggregates a customer's accounts across several banks and analyzes their spending.
- Financing and lending: fast, accurate credit assessment based on real data.
- Business accounting: connecting company accounts to accounting software to reconcile transactions automatically.
- Account-to-account payments: a lower-cost alternative to card fees for online stores.
- Income verification: for leasing, real estate, and installment companies.
Requirements before you start
- Licensing: providing the service requires a SAMA license or a partnership with a licensed entity.
- Bank-grade security: strong authentication, end-to-end encryption, and advanced API protection.
- Consent management: a clear interface explaining what the customer is sharing and why, with easy revocation.
- Compliance: adherence to the Personal Data Protection Law and the relevant cybersecurity controls.
User experience decides the winner
Trust in financial apps is built on details: clear consent steps, understandable Arabic, and fast performance. A complicated app will be abandoned, however innovative its idea.
Storm Apps develops secure fintech apps with a smooth user experience and supports your technical integration with the open banking ecosystem. Contact us to turn your financial idea into a launch-ready app.
