Saudi open banking is now a licensed activity

As of 26 March 2026, Saudi open banking is no longer only a sandbox story.

That is the date on which the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) announced the commencement of licensing fintech companies to provide open banking services, following the regulatory sandbox phase under its supervision. On the same day, SAMA also announced licences for two companies to conduct payment services by providing account information, describing that as one of the services associated with open banking.

That is enough to state one thing clearly: Saudi Arabia has now crossed from programme-building and sandbox supervision into a live licensing phase for open-banking-related activity.

It is not enough to state every other thing commentators would like it to settle. The official announcements are short. They confirm the phase change and the first licences. They do not, on their own, answer every operational question a third-party provider will care about.

What the official announcements establish

Three points are public and clear.

1. Licensing has started

SAMA’s 26 March 2026 announcement does not describe a consultation or a future intention. It states that licensing fintech companies to provide open banking services has commenced.

That matters because it moves open banking out of the category of “framework under development” and into the category of supervised activity with an official route into the market.

2. The sandbox phase is now behind that first licensing step

SAMA says the licensing move follows the successful completion of the regulatory sandbox phase under its supervision.

That is a meaningful sentence. It tells you the market has moved from supervised experimentation into ordinary supervisory infrastructure, at least for the services and entities now entering the licensed route.

3. Account-information-based services are definitely in scope

The second announcement is narrower than the first. It names two newly licensed companies and states that they are licensed to conduct payment services by providing account information, described as one of the services associated with open banking.

That makes account-information-based activity the one service area clearly and publicly anchored to specific licences on the day the licensing phase began.

What this changes in practice

For product, compliance and partnerships teams, the important change is that Saudi open banking can now be discussed as a licensed operating category rather than only as a framework initiative.

For engineering teams, the effect is more indirect but still real. A licensing phase changes the questions around any integration programme:

Who is actually authorised to provide the service?
Which service categories are already live under licence, and which are still emerging?
What evidence, certification or operational controls sit between a working integration and a production go-live?

Those are the questions that matter once a market leaves pure pilot status.

What the announcements do not settle

This is where most summaries become less careful than the source material warrants.

The official announcements do not, by themselves, settle all of the following:

the full licensing conditions for every open banking service type
any capital, fee or timeline requirements for applicants
whether transitional arrangements exist for firms that participated through earlier sandbox or partnership routes
the complete public technical profile the market expects participants to implement

Those may well exist in programme documents, rulebooks or participant guidance. The point is that they are not established by the two announcements alone, and should not be smuggled in as though they were.

Why this still matters, even with the gaps

Short official notices are still valuable if you read them for what they do prove.

Here, they prove that Saudi Arabia has entered the stage where open-banking services are being licensed under SAMA supervision, and that account-information-based services are part of that licensed reality. That is enough to change board-room, partnership and market-entry conversations.

It is also enough to separate Saudi Arabia more clearly from the other Gulf regimes.

The UAE’s public material is richer on central infrastructure, certification and technical standards. Bahrain’s public rulebook is more explicit about dedicated interfaces, testing facilities and access obligations. Saudi Arabia now has the clearest possible licensing signal, but a comparatively thinner public picture of day-to-day implementation.

That is not a criticism. It is simply the current state of what can be verified publicly.

What to read with it

Sources

SAMA Commences Licensing of Fintech Companies to Provide Open Banking Services, Saudi Central Bank, published 26 March 2026. Checked 30 July 2026.
SAMA Licenses “Altknwlwjya aljadydh llhulul albrmjyh” and “lyn tknwlwjyz Company Saudi Arabia litqniyat nuzum almaelumat” to Provide Open Banking Services, Saudi Central Bank, published 26 March 2026. Checked 30 July 2026.
Open Banking Policy, Saudi Central Bank. Checked 30 July 2026.

This article is deliberately narrower than most commentary around the March 2026 announcement. It states what SAMA’s public notices establish and does not infer beyond them.