The Saudi Credit and Savings Bank (SCSB) and Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) have signed a partnership agreement to launch Firnas platform for innovation, which provides the necessary support and encouragement for innovators in the Saudi community.

The agreement was signed by Ibrahim Abdulaziz Al-Hanichl, director general of the bank, and Khalid Al-Kaf, MD and CEO of Mobily, in Riyadh.

Firnas is an open platform for innovation initiated by Mobily in partnership with the National Center of Small and Emerging Enterprises, a subsidiary of the SCSB. The initiative goes in line with the role played by the bank and its orientations in providing the financial and non-financial services for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Firnas is regarded as an open platform for innovation, providing the opportunity for all to share their creative ideas that could be applied practically on the ground as commercial projects. The role of Mobily comes in providing operational and technical support as well as marketing support, whereas the role of SCSB is to provide the commercial support and professional training for innovators.

Firnas provides an integrated platform transferring the latest news related to entrepreneurship, technology and innovation, and covers also the events, internal and international conferences of this area.

Firnas will provide the winners the technical and commercial guidance in addition to necessary training to be ready for applying their ideas on the ground.

The winners will be rewarded according to the order of the ideas. The owner of the top voting idea will get SR10,000, the second will win SR5,000 and the third SR2,500.

Al-Hanichl added: “We are very pleased with this partnership with Mobily. We hope our efforts will be crowned with success.”

Al-Kaf said: “We are delighted to establish this partnership with SCSB, which will support innovators in Saudi society.”