Lean Technologies, the MENA region’s leading financial infrastructure provider, has been granted the Major Payment Institution license by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), to provide Open Banking services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The issuance of this inaugural license recently represents a significant inflection point for Saudi Arabia’s financial sector, confirmation that Open Banking has moved from the testing phase under the regulatory sandbox to a licensed activity.
Leanโs journey to this milestone began when it was admitted into SAMAโs Regulatory Sandbox as one of the first participants. Operating under strict governance standards, Lean connected over 1 million bank accounts and analysed more than 1 billion transactions, establishing itself as the most widely adopted and deeply integrated Open Banking provider in the Kingdom.
Hisham Al-Falih, CEO and Co-Founder of Lean Technologies, said: “When we founded Lean over six years ago, we held a conviction: that open, regulated access to financial data would become the foundation upon which the next generation of Saudi financial services would be built. Every partnership, every integration, every use case we developed within the Sandbox was a step toward validating that thesis. Receiving this license from SAMA is the moment that validation becomes official, and it is one I am genuinely proud of. With this license, we have the platform, the partnerships, and the regulatory standing to extend the reach of our infrastructure to thousands of merchants, tens of thousands of SMEs, and millions of end users across the Kingdom. The vision we started with has not changed; we are simply now in a position to realise it at the scale it always deserved.”
Adoption driven by partnerships
Leanโs adoption has been driven by partnerships with leading Saudi institutions including Tabby, Tamara, Abdul Latif Jameel, Sukuk, and Tasheel, spanning BNPL, consumer finance, automotive, investment, and government services. The breadth of this portfolio reflects a central conviction: Open Banking is essential national financial infrastructure.
One of the clearest demonstrations of this impact comes from Tamara, which deployed Leanโs infrastructure to transform the use of data to support better assessment of the financial solvency of individuals and businesses.
Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, CEO and Co-Founder of Tamara, said: “Lean has unlocked the full potential of cash-flow data in our underwriting. With access to rich, verified financial information, we can now responsibly serve customers that were previously difficult to underwrite, including freelancers, gig workers, and individuals with multiple income streams. This has expanded our access to credit, increased approval rates by more than 32% in our new consumer financing product, and driven strong, risk-adjusted growth. Lean’s infrastructure has been instrumental in helping us scale these capabilities with confidence.”
Across its partner base, Leanโs infrastructure has enabled enhanced KYC and onboarding, improved risk assessment models, and the development of data-driven financial products that were previously not viable. The consistent outcome is clear: better data enables better decisions and broader access to financial services.
Open Banking broadens access
Among the most consequential dimensions of Open Banking is its role in broadening access to financial services. Saudi Arabia’s workforce encompasses a growing population of individuals with non-traditional income segments that legacy credit infrastructure is poorly equipped to assess.
Leanโs infrastructure addresses this gap directly. Through its infrastructure, Lean has detected over SAR 37 billion in salaried income and SAR 14 billion in non-salaried income across the Kingdom. This verified, real-time data provides lenders with a materially more complete picture of customer affordability, expanding access to responsibly underwritten credit without compromising risk standards.
Lean’s development would not have been possible without SAMA’s considered approach to financial innovation. The Regulatory Sandbox established a structured and supervised pathway for companies to test, validate, and scale solutions under genuine governance conditions, balancing the imperative for innovation with robust consumer protection and systemic integrity.
As the Kingdom continues to advance its Vision 2030 objectives, a licensed and proven Open Banking layer represents a core component of its infrastructure. Lean remains committed to developing that infrastructure with the discipline, accountability, and long-term orientation that the Kingdom’s financial sector demands.
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