Mastercard partners with SiFi to empower businesses in Saudi Arabia

(MENAFN- Weber Shandwick) Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; 16 October 2023 – Mastercard has signed an exclusive agreement with Alhulul Almobassatah Financial Company (SiFi) to empower small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Saudi Arabia with a range of innovative offerings.

The agreement brings Mastercard, a leading technology company in the global payments sector together with SiFi, a Saudi-based fintech that simplifies how businesses manage spend — to provide greater access to novel financial solutions: offerings designed to overcome challenges in controlling spend, managing expense reports, and accessing analytics to save money.

Utilizing Mastercard’s expertise, ecosystem, network, and resources, SiFi will have the ability to offer solutions with ease to SMEs and enterprises across the Kingdom, enabling them to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving global economy.

“Mastercard is a key partner for SiFi. As a reputable player in the payment technology field, Mastercard's expertise and flexibility helps us adapt to our evolving needs and improve our service to customers. With their support, we can better understand and address our customers' expectations,” said H.E. Ahmed Alhakbani, Founder and CEO of SiFi.

“As Saudi Arabia’s SME space continues to grow, it is our responsibility to effect more positive change, serving as the partner of choice to fuel that growth. At Mastercard, we are committed to working closely with partners to co-create solutions and offer access to our technology and expertise. Our agreement with SiFi is fully geared towards achieving this goal,” said Adam Jones, Country General Manager, MENA Central, Mastercard.

Mastercard’s agreement with SiFi marks the latest step taken by the technology company to empower the Kingdom’s burgeoning fintech community and transform Saudi entrepreneurship.

Utilizing Mastercard’s expertise, ecosystem, network, and resources, SiFi will have the ability to issue corporate cards with ease — to SMEs and enterprises across the Kingdom, enabling them to meet the demands of a rapidly evolving global economy.

“With SMEs playing a greater role in powering the economy, we understand the importance of offering access to quality, responsive solutions that enable businesses and fintech’s to grow. Whether empowering entities to accept more payment cards and methods or simplifying controlling and tracking expenses, we equip SMEs with the tools to accomplish their business goals,” said Maria Medvedeva, Country Manager, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Mastercard.

“We are in the business of empowering companies to take greater control of their expenses. By partnering with equally innovative entities, such as Mastercard, we aim to curate an advanced suite of offerings that resolve our customers' financial management challenges,” said Fahad Alfozan, Business Development Manager at SiFi.
The partnership underlines Mastercard’s commitment to bringing one billion people, 50 million micro and small businesses, and 25 million women entrepreneurs into the digital economy by 2025. This is in keeping with the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 aims of increasing the SME sector’s contribution to the Saudi economy to 35% by 2030 and raising SME lending to 20% of funding by the end of the decade.

The exclusive agreement will support more SMEs around the country, with SiFi issuing commercial cards to employees, providing real-time expense tracking capabilities, and automating accounting entries. By enabling more businesses to streamline operations, the partnership will help to save time and money, while improving compliance and visibility into spending.

With the Fintech Saudi 21/22 Annual Report outlining that there are currently 147 active fintech’s in Saudi Arabia, Mastercard’s work with SiFi will contribute to the growth and development of the Kingdom’s SME and fintech sectors, providing more enterprises with the tools to scale and grow their businesses.

MENAFN17102023004056002392ID1107257726