RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s fintech race is no longer being defined by consumer-facing apps, but by the infrastructure powering them, according to Mohamed Oueida, founder and CEO of Stitch.
As the Kingdom’s financial sector matures under Vision 2030, attention is shifting away from user interfaces toward the underlying systems that determine scalability, execution speed, and long-term competitiveness.
“Infrastructure determines who wins,” Oueida said in an interview with Arab News, arguing that the market has already moved beyond “surface-level innovation.”
While payments, wallets, and digital financial services have become mainstream, he said the real constraint lies beneath these applications.
“You can build a beautiful front end, but you can’t iterate, price dynamically, or embed finance deeply without control over the core.”
This shift comes as Saudi Arabia’s fintech ecosystem enters a more complex phase of growth.
Stitch is a Saudi-based fintech infrastructure company that provides a unified financial operating system for banks and financial institutions.
The platform integrates core functions such as payments, lending, accounts, and data into a single layer, allowing institutions to replace fragmented legacy systems and reduce reliance on multiple external vendors.
By acting as a system of record for critical workflows and data, Stitch enables financial institutions to streamline operations, improve scalability, and build new financial products more efficiently.
Broader industry data supports Oueida’s view that legacy infrastructure is a structural constraint.
A 2025 report by McKinsey & Co. found that over 70 percent of banks still rely on decades-old core systems, leading to fragmented technology stacks that slow product development and increase costs.
Research from Deloitte similarly shows that banks with disconnected systems can take up to three times longer to launch new products compared to those with unified architectures.
The impact extends to emerging technologies. According to Accenture, nearly 80 percent of banking executives cite data fragmentation as the main barrier to scaling AI.
According to Stitch’s research, more than 87 percent of financial institutions in the Kingdom rely on external vendors, while over 60 percent offering financing products continue to operate on legacy systems.
The result is a fragmented environment that slows execution and limits scalability, even as demand for digital financial services accelerates.
Oueida described this disconnect as a structural bottleneck.
“The apps get the attention. The infrastructure determines the outcome,” he said.
At the center of this transformation is what Oueida calls the “financial operating system” — a unified layer integrating payments, lending, and accounts, as well as data, and controls.
While cloud adoption has improved scalability and reduced friction across the sector, he noted that it has often been implemented as an overlay rather than a replacement for legacy systems.
As a result, many institutions continue to operate with fragmented cores, ledgers, and workflows.
“The real engine is a unified financial operating system,” he said, adding that such integration is also key to unlocking the value of emerging technologies. “Even AI then becomes highly valuable with paths to quick ROI.”
The implications are particularly significant as artificial intelligence gains traction across financial services.
While most current applications remain focused on areas such as fraud detection, credit scoring, and analytics, Oueida said the next phase will depend on embedding AI directly into operational decision-making.
That, in turn, requires high-quality, unified data — something many institutions still lack due to fragmented infrastructure.
The risks of maintaining legacy systems often become visible only at scale, he said.
Early-stage fintechs may appear to operate efficiently, but underlying inefficiencies surface as transaction volumes grow and operational complexity increases.
“Execution breaking once scale kicks in” is one of the most common challenges, according to Oueida, adding: “A pricing change, a regulatory update, or a new distribution partner suddenly turns into a multi-year project.”
He described this as a “hidden tax on growth” that many founders fail to anticipate, driven by dependencies on multiple vendors and disconnected systems.
What might initially seem like incremental changes can require coordination across several external parties, delaying innovation and increasing operational risk.
Despite these challenges, Oueida said the broader Saudi ecosystem is well-positioned to address them.
Regulatory support from the Saudi Central Bank, including open banking frameworks and real-time payment infrastructure, has laid the groundwork for modernization.
Cloud adoption has also gained momentum, providing a foundation for more scalable architectures.
However, institutional inertia remains a factor. “The will to modernize is strong,” Oueida said, but the path to doing so “without disruption” continues to be a key concern for banks and financial institutions.
This tension between ambition and execution is shaping how fintech startups engage with traditional financial institutions.
According to the CEO, winning trust in the Saudi market requires a combination of product strength, regulatory compliance, and long-term relationship building.
“Trust is earned at the intersection,” he said. “A strong product opens the door, but doesn’t close the deal. Compliance is table stakes.”
The growing adoption of application programming interfaces reflects a broader shift toward openness and interoperability in the sector.
While SAMA’s frameworks have made APIs increasingly standard, Oueida noted that challenges persist at the infrastructure level, where data is often dispersed across multiple systems.
Stitch’s approach focuses on unifying these data sources into a single point of truth, enabling institutions to move from basic data retrieval to more advanced use cases.
“The question shifts from ‘where is this data’ to ‘how far can we go with it,’” he said. The company’s recent $25 million series A funding round is being used to scale its operating system for modern financial institutions, with the investment marking a16z’s first backing of a Saudi fintech and bringing Stitch’s total funding to $35 million.
Rather than focusing on revenue metrics alone, Oueida pointed to the increasing number of institutions using Stitch for core operations as the clearest signal of growth.
“When institutions choose to run critical workflows and manage authoritative data on a platform, that reflects deep trust and long-term alignment,” he said.
That emphasis on trust extends to the company’s approach to profitability. Oueida described infrastructure as a discipline-driven business, where financial decisions have direct implications for customer stability.
“Stitch runs mission-critical systems. Carelessness with capital would translate directly into risk for our customers,” he said, adding that sustainable growth requires balancing ambition with operational discipline.
Looking ahead, Oueida identified scale and reliability as the defining metrics of success.
By the end of 2026, he said, the company’s performance will be measured not by pilot projects or announcements, but by the number of institutions running production systems on its platform.
“The number of customers and transactions running on Stitch at scale” will be the key benchmark, he said, alongside customer satisfaction. “When they succeed, we succeed.”
The broader Saudi fintech ecosystem is also undergoing a shift in mindset. According to Oueida, institutions are no longer debating whether to modernize, but how to do so effectively.
This evolution reflects increasing confidence among regulators, banks, and fintech players, as well as a growing alignment with national development goals.
“Institutions are no longer asking whether to modernize. They’re asking how to do it without creating more complexity,” he said.
As the Kingdom accelerates its transition toward a cashless economy and expands fintech participation, infrastructure is emerging as the critical battleground. While consumer-facing innovations may continue to capture headlines, the systems operating behind the scenes are likely to determine which companies — and which institutions — ultimately succeed.
“The ambition is there,” Oueida said. “The question now is execution.”
