Saudi Arabia is building the legal architecture for tokenised assets right now, with over 20 licensed entities already operating under the kingdom's digital asset framework. Joining me to unpack it is Victor Chatenay, Co-Chair of the MENA Fintech Association Saudi Arabia Chapter. Victor, welcome to Wall Street to Mena. You were just named Co-Chair of MFTA Saudi. What is the first priority on your list?
Thank you for having me. The priority for us is really to hit the ground running and be that forum where fintechs, financial institutions, and regulators can come together to see where the opportunities and challenges are in further adopting fintech. A lot of international feedback we get on Saudi Arabia is that it remains a bit of a black box if you are looking from the outside. But with Vision 2030 there is a lot of momentum — fintech and digital payments are one of the key pillars — so we want to help further diversify the Saudi economy, enable more private sector growth, and build this digital economy, which is a key part of the modernisation of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia does not have one unified digital asset law. It relies on existing securities and banking regulation instead. Is that actually working?
The kingdom is taking a slow, pragmatic approach to how digital assets should be adopted and what the regulatory framework should look like. A lot of the concepts in tokenisation can already be captured in existing regulation — a tokenised security is still a security, a tokenised deposit is still a bank deposit. So a lot of existing regulation can be applied. But what they are doing particularly well is maintaining ongoing communication between financial institutions, fintechs, and the regulator — the Saudi Central Bank and Capital Markets Authority are actively engaging the private sector to understand how businesses want to adopt this technology and what products and business models they plan to use. That informs whether the current environment is adequate or whether specific digital asset regulation is needed.
The CMA has processed applications from over 100 licensed entities. Is that pace of approval fast enough?
I think the number of processed applications is not quite the right metric. What you are seeing from the CMA is a lot of work over the past few months to broaden and deepen the maturity of their capital markets. Foreign investor ownership has risen about 88% from 2019 to 2023 and is now more than 500 billion Saudi riyals. The market has continued to broaden what can be issued and traded, developing its derivative markets. There is a lot of momentum behind the approvals — and they are doing what they can to make the local market as attractive as possible for foreign investment.
Tokenisation in Saudi is expanding beyond finance into real estate, energy, and industrial assets. Which sector moves fastest?
For context, the real estate general authority here launched a sandbox last year to enable fintechs to issue tokens representing real estate ownership. It has been a successful programme, but it remains limited in scale. There are still open questions around legal ownership structure and what investors can do on the secondary market. The same can be said for energy and industrial assets — a lot of work still remaining. What we are seeing on the ground is that tokenisation adoption will probably mirror what we have seen in more mature markets — traditional financial assets like bonds, bank deposits, and funds will see the most momentum first, before more exotic categories like real estate and industrial assets.
Is fintech growth actually reaching the whole kingdom or is it still concentrated in Riyadh?
Saudi Arabia is doing quite well on distribution compared to countries where the economy is very concentrated in the capital. Yes, Riyadh is a major centre of gravity — it is where large corporations, regulators, banks, and investors are based. But each region seems to be focusing on its own strengths. The Western Province and Jeddah have huge trade, logistics, and tourism. The Eastern Province is where Aramco is very present with supply chain finance and working capital. It will be interesting to see how entrepreneurs in different parts of the kingdom focus on local needs — a small industrial supplier in the Eastern Province is going to have very different fintech needs from a consumer in Riyadh.
Thank you so much for joining us today Victor.
Thank you, thank you for having me.
