Visa enables local Saudi e-commerce processing

E-commerce businesses in Saudi Arabia can now process online payments locally through Visa’s Acceptance Platform, following its approval under the Saudi Central Bank’s (SAMA) New E-commerce Payments Interface. The platform allows merchants and payment service providers to process transactions within the Kingdom.

The move supports the growth of Saudi Arabia’s e-commerce sector by providing local payment processing for online businesses. It supports payment options including mada, digital wallets, saved card payments and recurring payments, helping merchants manage different online payment needs.

The platform combines payment processing, fraud checks, tokenisation and authentication in one system. It is hosted on local cloud infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, which Visa deployed last year.

Ali Bailoun, Senior Vice President and Group General Manager for Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman at Visa, said: “Enabling local e-commerce processing through the New E-commerce Payments Interface on the Visa Acceptance Platform helps simplify payment acceptance and enables seamless e-commerce experiences for consumers.”

The local processing capability also allows payment service providers to build e-commerce payment services around Saudi Arabia’s local requirements.