KSA Open Banking Framework

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Open Banking Framework aims to deliver several customer outcomes, including increased control over their financial data, enhanced transparency, access to a wider range of financial products and services, improved customer experience, and increased competition leading to potentially better products, rates, and personalized offerings.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Open Banking Framework emphasizes interoperability by establishing standardized APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and data formats. This enables seamless integration and communication between banks and authorized third-party providers, ensuring compatibility and smooth exchange of financial data, fostering a cohesive and interconnected open banking ecosystem.

Saudi Central Bank (SAMA)

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The main principles of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Open Banking Framework are customer consent, security, standardization, competition, innovation, and regulatory oversight. It focuses on enabling secure data sharing, consumer protection measures, ensuring compliance with standardized APIs, and ultimately to enable a wide range of consumer and business use cases.

The open banking platform of Tarabut Gateway is working with the Shariah-compliant micro-lending service provider, allowing for real-time financial data with user consent.

• Business Rules 2022.11.01-final-errata1 / 16 Jan 2023
• KSA Standard 2022.11.01-final-errata2 / 16 Jan 2023

The API specifications are made available under an open source license to any developer who has registered and is approved by SAMA.

Only companies that are authorised by SAMA can use Open Banking APIs to access financial information on behalf of a customer.

• Market Participants: Definitions of participant roles, together with a register of banks and fintechs in the KSA Open Banking ecosystem.
• Use Cases: An overview of the Open Banking evaluation framework and prioritization, together with details of the use cases to be enabled by each new release.
• Business Rules: Provides clear directives on the requirements that must be adhered to in order for banks and fintechs to provide Open Banking services, with items related to specific use cases clearly articulated.
• KSA Standards: These Standards are comprised of Customer Experience Guidelines, API Specifications, Implementation Requirements and Operational Guidelines.
• Certification Framework: Detailed process and templates covering all elements of certification for banks and fintechs.
• Complaint Management Process: Enables market participants to raise a complaint with any other market participant in the case there are any technical, onboarding or operational issues which may prevent the successful implementation of Open Banking services.

Open Banking

• Account Information
• Service Requests

The following resources are available to all registered developers:

• Open Banking Framework (including Use Cases, Business Rules and Standards)
• Open Banking Lab (including Model Bank and Conformance Tools) 

Open Banking in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a relatively new concept. In December 2020, the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) issued the Open Banking Policy to promote innovation and competition. The Open Banking Famework was implemented gradually, with regulations and guidelines developed to facilitate secure data sharing and enhance customer choice and experience. The Open Banking Lab was launched in May 2022, initially based on the UK Open Banking Standard, to enable banks and fintechs to start development and testing. The Open Banking Framework was officially launched in November 2022.

The governance of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Open Banking Framework is overseen by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA). SAMA sets the regulations, guidelines, and standards for open banking implementation, monitors compliance, and ensures the security, privacy, and protection of customer data within the framework.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Open Banking Framework demonstrates resilience through robust security measures, strict data protection protocols, and regulatory oversight by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA). It aims to ensure the secure and uninterrupted operation of the open banking ecosystem, maintaining trust and stability for customers and stakeholders involved.

The Open Banking Lab enables a robust certification framework which is mandatory for all banks and fintechs who provide open banking services.

This includes:

• Security Certification (to the OpenID FAPI profile)
• Functional Certification
• Customer Experience Certification
• Operational Certification

SAMA also provides a complaints process, to enable speed resolution of any issues between participants prior to any escalation.

Open Banking Policy

Payment Services Provider Regulations