RIYADH: Electronic payments in retail surpassed the 55 percent target set out by the Financial Sector Development Program, FSDP, one of the main programs of Saudi Vision 2030.

The e-payments exceeded 57 percent of total transactions conducted in 2021, the Saudi Central Bank said in a statement.

Over 5.1 billion transactions were made through the national Mada payment system during 2021, with a growth rate of 81 percent compared to 76 percent in 2020, the statement said.

More than a million Point of Sale terminals were deployed by the end of 2021 compared to 721,000 terminals deployed in 2020.

Additionally, contactless payments methods accounted for 95 percent of all PoS transactions in 2021, alongside other electronic payment methods such as e-commerce payments, ‘SADAD’ system payments and the new Instant Money Transfer through ‘Sarie’ system and others.

The business sector had 84 percent of its total payment transactions electronic in 2021, compared to just 51 percent in 2019, marking a 65 percent increase in electronic payment share during these past two years.

Accordingly, major corporations rely on electronic payments to complete 99.6 percent of their transactions, while the same metric stood at 78 percent for Small Medium Enterprises, and 76 percent for micro enterprises, the Central Bank noted.

The Central Bank is working on promoting electronic infrastructure, expanding electronic payment activities and accelerating the electronic transformation of transactions, Governor of the Bank Fahad Almubarak said.

He added that this most recent achievement was driven by FSDP and the implementation of the bank’s strategic plans for the payments sector, primarily aiming to reduce dependency on cash, and increase the rate of electronic payments to 70 percent by 2025.

Almubarak emphasized the joint efforts between the government and private sectors to increase payment choices and implement many payment digitization initiatives.