RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s fintech sector provides a strong foundation for startups to succeed alongside strict regulatory challenges, according to a top entrepreneur.
Speaking at the “Rocket Growth – The Fintech Boom” panel during the 24 Fintech conference in Riyadh, Abdulmajeed Al-Sukhan, co-founder and CEO of Tamara, emphasized the importance of balancing rapid growth with regulatory compliance.
Saudi Arabia aims to have 525 active fintech entities by 2030, underscoring the Kingdom’s commitment to driving innovation in the sector.
Launched in April 2018 by the Saudi Central Bank and the Capital Market Authority, Fintech Saudi has been pivotal in transforming the Kingdom into a leading fintech hub.
“It’s essential to strike a balance between rapid growth and maintaining proper regulation and compliance. If you expand quickly without building a solid foundation, you may face significant issues down the line,” said the top official of the Saudi Arabia-based buy now, pay later startup.
Al-Sukhan pointed out that there is a “very open market” in Saudi Arabia, where the regulator is creating an environment that fosters innovation.
He added that it is still a controlled environment, which can be limiting.
“That is natural, and I believe it is healthy, too. If we hadn’t had a sandbox and instead launched a buy now, pay later service unregulated for years, then suddenly faced regulation, it would have caused significant issues. We’d be in a much worse position today,” said Al-Sukhan.
Discussing the impact of artificial intelligence on the fintech sector, the CEO described AI as the most significant development of our lifetime.
“In my opinion, it is even bigger than the Internet or anything else. It is changing our perception of reality, so it is impacting business. But the more practical answer is that AI is a force of something that we have never seen in the coding industry and engineering in general,” he said.
Al-Sukhan believes AI will revolutionize productivity and accelerate development in unprecedented ways.
“When building a company, shipping is the most critical part. Artificial intelligence is going to enable companies like ours to ship features fast, to make sure we are ahead, to know what is the latest, and to do a lot of the things that used to take us a lot of time, even in the research side,” he said.
He added that AI’s capability to analyze vast amounts of data will help companies like Tamara deliver products that customers want, at the right time, in the right way, and at the right place.
“Indeed, we are on the brink of something very significant with AI,” Al-Sukhan said.
