The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, the kingdom's banking regulator, has begun designing a 'sandbox' (a light regulatory environment) to help it understand and assess the effect of new software in the financial services market and to allow national and international companies to test their digital wares in a financial context.

This is all in aid of helping the private sector grow. The so-called sandbox aims to attract start-ups, financial institutions and existing financial technology or FinTech companies (both Saudi and foreign) that want to provide Saudi markets with innovative financial services. SAMA is also keen to attract "professional services companies" that collaborate with these companies. It will allow the companies it selects to test their products with relaxed controls.

The services and products that firms are testing now include e-wallet services, P2P transfers and purchases through QR codes (i.e. barcodes), direct international transfers through FinTech companies, the aggregators of point-of-sale (POS) devices, SADAD bills, SADAD accounts (SADAD is a payment system that SAMA invented) and mada online (online payment cards).

SAMA pointed out that the permission to work in the sandbox environment has been granted to 11 local and international banks, allowing them to open and update accounts without the need to visit the branches and giving permission to seven companies to provide various services in the field of digital payments.

As of August, crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin have been illegal in Saudi Arabia.