Fintech’s Female Factor: How Women Are Reshaping Finance In The KSA And Beyond
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Huda Al Mousa, Country President for Saudi Arabia at PayTabs. Image courtesy PayTabs.
Visa’s Dr. Jaffar echoes the transformative role of AI, but also points to the emergence of other technologies that are powering the future of fintech. “What excites me most today is the role of AI in reshaping so many parts of life, including fintech,” she says. “It’s transforming the way we build financial services for everyone. But it is not a new concept for us. We have invested more than $3 billion in AI over the past decade, and launched three new AI-powered solutions that protect transactions across the board. But the new chapter is how AI is moving beyond protection into redefining the customer experience. One of the most exciting shifts is agentic commerce. The idea that you could trust an AI to buy your groceries, book your travel, or even choose a birthday gift is no longer science fiction. It’s happening now. The real innovation isn’t just the AI itself, but the infrastructure being built to make these transactions seamless and secure. That’s where Visa comes in, making sure these AI agents can pay on your behalf, safely, and with the right controls in place.”
Dr. Jaffar also highlights stablecoins as another big development. “They combine the stability of traditional currencies with the speed of crypto, opening the door for faster and more global payments,” she explains. “Visa is building the rails for this too, so that stablecoins can move securely across our network, power digital wallets, and even be spent anywhere Visa is accepted.”
Running parallel to the rise of AI is the advent of embedded finance, a trend that experts see as revolutionary, with Tahaluf’s Swiderska highlighting its ability to create invisible, seamless experiences for consumers. “We’re entering a world where financial services are no longer stand-alone products, but integrated into the daily touchpoints of people’s lives, whether that’s e-commerce, mobility, or even social platforms,” Swiderska says. “For a region like the Middle East, with its young, digital-first population and ambitious economic transformation agendas, this trend holds enormous potential to unlock new business models and expand financial inclusion.”
C4IR Saudi Arabia’s Dr. AlBuhairan agrees with this sentiment, highlighting the scale of the embedded finance revolution and its enablers in the Kingdom. “A fintech trend to observe now is embedded finance, which integrates payments, lending, and insurance into everyday platforms,” she says. “It has been reported that this market could reach $7.2 trillion globally by 2030, and $37.7 billion in the MENA.”
Dr. AlBuhairan adds that in Saudi Arabia, there are several policies and ecosystem support mechanisms already in place to enable this future. For instance, SAMA introduced its Open Banking Framework in November 2022, which was followed by the launch of the Open Banking Lab in January 2023. The framework sets out legislation, regulatory guidelines, and technical standards to guide the development of open banking services. Meanwhile, the lab offers an environment where banks and fintechs can develop, test, and certify their solutions to ensure compliance with the framework. Even as its purpose is to foster innovation and speed up the rollout of open banking in Saudi Arabia, it’s worth noting that SAMA’s Regulatory Sandbox has already approved more than 89 fintech startups—from over 500 applications—since 2018.
This push to integrate financial services into people’s daily lives is playing out across the region. e& money’s Tanrikulu says, “With e& money, people can send money instantly across borders, pay bills, shop with secure digital cards, or top up mobiles. These services are particularly impactful for migrant workers and low-income groups who have historically been excluded from the banking system.”
Here, she highlights a recent milestone: e& money’s partnership with the UAE Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratization and the Central Bank of the UAE to extend wage protection to domestic workers for the first time. This enables safer, more reliable digital salary payments, replacing cash. Looking ahead, she mentions services such as digital gold management and micro-lending, combined with AI-driven onboarding, smarter credit scoring, and real-time fraud detection.
“Our vision has been and will always be to make financial services accessible to every UAE resident in 30 seconds,” Tanrikulu says. “For me, the true innovation is when these tools create real impact in people’s daily lives.”
