The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA), the central bank of Saudi Arabia, has introduced real-time payments in the kingdom by collaborating with Mastercard unit Vocalink.

The payments platform is the result of Vocalink’s tie-up with Saudi Payments, part of SAMA.

The platform will support instant account-to-account payments between financial institutions, businesses and consumers.

With the platform, consumers and businesses can instantly make credit transfers, e-invoicing and billing.

They can also make real-time payment acknowledgement, money transfers and bulk payments with the payments platform.

Moreover, consumers can leverage the technology to carry out P2P transfers through their smartphones.

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They do not require the bank details of the recipient for the transfer.

Saudi Payments managing director Ziad Bin Bandar Al-Yousef said: “Saudi Payments commitment to be key player in transforming the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into a cashless society is at the heart of our strategy and aligned with the kingdom’s Vision 2030, as prescribed in the Financial Sector Development Programme (FSDP).

“We believe the Kingdoms’ consumers and businesses will benefit tremendously from leveraging the power of real-time payments and help the Kingdom to a smooth transition to the digital economy.”

Vocalink’s real-time payments technology first went live in the UK.

In 2017, the technology powered the launch of real-time payment system (RTP) by The Clearing House in the US.