RIYADH, 27 June 2007 — Saudi Arabia launched yesterday a new centralized payment system, “Sadad”, enabling citizens and residents to combine all their utility and service bills into one bill and pay it through any sales points or ATM machine by the end of this year. The payer does not have to be a customer of the bank to use the system.
Sadad was officially launched in the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) by Deputy Governor Mohammed Al-Jasser.
This is the Kingdom’s latest revolutionary payment system after the Saudi Payments Network (SPAN) established in 1990, and the Saudi Arabian Riyal Interbank Express (SARIE) established in 1997. “The system was going through an experimental phase in the past two months. It is now fully complete,” Al-Jasser said.
He noted that 6,300 ATM machines from almost all the banks in the Kingdom have the payment service. “All of the banks in the Kingdom with an exception of one or two have joined Sadad,” he pointed out. During the experimental phase last year, millions of transactions were paid through Sadad valued at SR14.6 trillion, he added.
Through the system, citizens and residents will be able to pay bills from the passport department, the traffic police, banks, water department, as well as the electricity company and several airlines. There is no need to open bank accounts in certain banks to pay for the bills using the ATM service, unlike previous agreements by several banks and the Saudi Telecom Company or the traffic police.
Sadad will be responsible for collecting the amount from the person’s bank account and paying it to the bank.
When a customer goes to any ATM machine, he can automatically register his mobile bill, electricity bill, or water bill through the system. The Sadad system then memorizes the account number and notifies the customer when a new bill has been issued that has not been paid. The customer is then given the choice whether to pay it or not.
The service is totally free without charge, he further said. “The system has been designed so that the local or resident need not pay for any charges for the transactions made,” he said, adding that local banks will be responsible for paying the fees. Nonetheless, banks will still benefit from the centralized payment system as they will no longer deal with millions of customers for bill payments. They will now deal only with Sadad, the official said.
Abdul Malik Al-Asheikh, another official from SAMA, said that small and medium enterprises in the Kingdom would also have the option of choosing total solutions through Sadad.
The purpose of establishing Sadad was for citizens and residents in the Kingdom to save time in paying transactions, said Al-Jasser. “We are concerned more about locals and residents saving as much time as possible when paying their bills,” he said, adding that “the interests of banks are not our main priority.”
