EXCLUSIVE: “Line of Vision” – Jeff Parker, Paymentology in ‘The Paytech Magazine’

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s ambition to transform his kingdom’s economy has created a welcoming environment for providers like Paymentology to build a brave new financial world

When Paymentology announced that it was seeking to register the company in Saudi Arabia in 2025 and expand its team on the ground in Riyadh, it underlined the kingdom’s status as a fintech land of opportunity. The number of fintechs has exploded, with the Saudi British Joint Business Council counting fewer than 20 in 2018 and more than 200 six years later.

The growth was triggered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s modernising programme Vision 2030, which aims to reduce his kingdom’s reliance on oil. It’s seen the liberalisation of investment rules, guaranteeing equal treatment for foreign and local investors, and regulatory reforms that have both driven and responded to consumer demand for digital financial services, such as e-wallets and buy-now-pay-later (BNPL).

Despite physical transactions being overtaken by apps and e-commerce, Paymentology Chief Executive Jeff Parker says payments remains a ‘people business’, which demands a physical presence – especially in a country where culture and finance are so deeply intertwined, with Islamic principles providing the legal and operational framework.

“To really grasp the huge opportunity in Saudi Arabia, it makes sense for us to be on the ground,” he says. “You need a team here that understands the market and can build relationships.”

The government’s ultimate aim is a cashless economy. And that provides opportunities for providers such as Paymentology, the issuer/processor with a Cloud-based plug-and-play platform that allows banks, fintechs and telcos to issue and manage a wide range of debit, prepaid, and credit cards. It predicts a four per cent growth in card use between 2024 and 2028. Debit cards already dominate, with around 31 million cards in circulation, followed by pre-payment cards (around 22 million) and credit cards (around
four million). Meanwhile, the Saudi Central Bank reported that electronic payments accounted for 79 per cent of total retail transactions in 2024, up from 70 per cent a year earlier.

Parker says: “We have the ability to integrate into local domestic switches such as Mada, and the ability to process transactions ‘on soil’, which is a requirement here. We think what we’ve done so far proves that we can help our clients achieve their growth ambitions.

“Barriers to entry have come down a lot because players such as ourselves can provide Cloud-first infrastructure with access not just for the big clients, but for small ones, too.

“The ecosystem is key; that and building partnerships. I don’t think you can be successful today trying to be all things to all people. So, we’re very much focussed on what we do really well, and then we find partners that can support us.

“How do you build a good ecosystem? You operate locally on the ground, you build relationships and trust, and, hopefully, that’s what we’re going to do at Paymentology.”

It’s a humble approach that should play well in a country where business relationships are defined by respect, patience and strong personal connections. That’s not to say the pace of change in Saudi Arabia is slow – it’s anything but, and the aspiration is huge. Large-scale infrastructure projects are transforming people’s lives at an unprecedented pace and the Crown Prince’s drive and optimism appear to have infected all levels of society who show the same hunger for change.

“The energy here feels like Silicon Valley 10 years ago, where it was never about finding the problem in ideas, but working together to find solutions. That’s a great mindset,” says Parker. “We’re always looking at how we can continue to improve our proposition, whether that’s the speed at which we can create new products or enhancing tokenisation capabilities for the needs of the Saudi market.

“It pushes us as a business because we know our clients and the cardholders have this demand for things to be better and better.”

The paytech was already working with Saudi clients, including digital bank D360 and BNPL lender Tabby, before deciding to commit to the region with registration on Saudi soil. That’s already delivering opportunities. Paymentology signed a memorandum of understanding with Saudi remittance/digital payments firm Enjaz on the same day that it committed to expanding its presence in Riyadh. The deal to provide card products to Enjaz should be lucrative – Enjaz operates money transfers to more than 200 countries and will use Paymentology’s Cloud-based card issuing and processing platform to offer its customers pre-paid, credit and virtual cards.

Working ‘on soil’

Beyond enhancing opportunities to network and win business, having a base in Saudi Arabia is a necessity if Paymentology wants to become a strategically important player. A cornerstone of the Vision 2030 initiative is a Saudi Central Bank requirement that payment service providers process, store and manage transaction data within the country’s physical borders. Transactions must be processed using locally-hosted infrastructure, not offshore.

The policy ultimately pushes foreign firms to invest in Saudi data centres and infrastructure, and it has driven the number of fintechs licensing their operations in the country. The Law of Payments and Payment Services, which came into force in 2023, gives the central bank authority over payment systems and services, including digital wallets and instant payment platforms.

Mada, the national debit card and payments network, connects all banks to ATMs, POS terminals and e-commerce channels. Debit cards are mandated to run on the system’s rails, though credit cards do not have to. The country has a national bill-payment system, SADAD, for the payment of utility bills and government fees and fines. And there’s SARIE – a real-time gross settlement and instant payments facility that allows payments between accounts using IBANs, emails, mobile phone numbers and national IDs.

To build resilience and scalability, Parker says Paymentology will integrate with Google Cloud Platform (GCP), having previously relied on Saudi Arabia’s dominant provider, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

“We recognise that integrating into GCP gives us extra resilience,” he says. “Though the Cloud is resilient, I think in the region last year they processed over 12 billion transactions, so you must continue to scale and never stop. The great thing about the Cloud, though, is that it can be scaled up and down. So, we can grow it with our clients, but we can also retract in off-peak times, which manages cost.”

Paymentology is owned by the vertically integrated Teya Group (formerly SaltPay), which supports SMEs globally with multiple payment services delivered through multiple companies. Just prior to its acquisition in 2021, Paymentology’s global reach outside Europe was boosted by a merger of Paymentology UK with South African payments company Tutuka.

Operating in 65 countries, the combined Paymentology team offers the tokenisation of credit, debit and pre-payment cards for use via e-wallets, with a focus on user experience that provides cardholders with dynamic controls, such as the ability to set spend limits against category codes to help with budgeting. Paymentology’s expanded international reach gives the business a deep well of experience to draw from when facilitating a customer’s card payments plan. Also central to its offer is the business’s modular platform, which gives clients access to more than 450 production-ready APIs.

Leaving legacy behind

Banks’ legacy systems are clearly a potential drag on Saudi Arabia’s ambitions for financial services, so Paymentology offers varying levels of programme control and ownership, geared to particular client types. For large banks and fintechs that require unique functionality, it has an ‘in-house’ model where Paymentology only provides particular operational components, and the technical processing platform is run by the client.

Meanwhile, the model used by most issuers is the ‘technical processing’ model, whereby the client manages the card product, uses its own licence, or is sponsored by a partner, but Paymentology delivers the most complex operation – running the card’s core technical processing requirements. For smaller fintechs, or clients where payments is not their core focus, the ‘programme management’ model gives clients control of the product, sales and marketing, but Paymentology runs the back end and acts as a licence sponsor.

And for clients with no development capability or experience of payments (typically those that want a credit card for loyalty purposes), it has a ‘co-branded’ model whereby it does everything except branding and marketing.

Paymentology describes Saudi Arabia’s regulatory requirements as ‘strict but manageable’ for clients, since licence sponsors and programme managers have evolved there to share the burden. For Parker, the country’s ‘almost insatiable appetite and ambition for growth’ pushes his team to ‘never rest on our laurels’.

“It’s what’s exciting about working in this region,” he says.

This article was published in The Paytech Magazine Issue #18, Page 16-17

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