Dublin, Feb. 27, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The “Saudi Arabia Prepaid Card and Digital Wallet Market Intelligence and Future Growth Dynamics Databook – Q1 2026 Update” report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com’s offering.
The Saudi Arabia prepaid card and digital wallet market is expected to grow by 9.1% on annual basis to reach US$9.65 billion in 2026
The prepaid card and digital wallet market in the country has experienced robust growth during 2021-2025, achieving a CAGR of 15.1%. This upward trajectory is expected to continue, with the market forecast to grow at a CAGR of 7.5% during 2026-2030. By the end of 2030, the prepaid card and digital wallet market is projected to expand from its 2025 value of USD 8.85 billion to approximately USD 12.88 billion.
Saudi Arabia’s prepaid-card outcomes are being set by how prepaid value is issued and used inside the Mada-led ecosystem, not by growth in “standalone prepaid plastic.” Over the last 12 months, SAMA’s focus on e-commerce payment infrastructure, tokenisation, and card-in-wallet enablement has raised the baseline for prepaid programs to be wallet-ready, interoperable, and compliant by design.
Competitive Landscape of the Saudi Arabia Prepaid Card Market
Current state of prepaid card
- Prepaid in Saudi Arabia is increasingly delivered as a wallet and card credential anchored on Mada acceptance, where the product is expected to work across POS, online, and device wallets. The operating context is shaped by SAMA’s infrastructure agenda (e-commerce interface, tokenisation) and the country’s high non-cash payment penetration.
- In practice, competitive intensity shows up in how quickly issuers can onboard, provision to wallets, and support e-commerce acceptance with consistent controls and dispute handling. The market’s direction is reinforced by SAMA’s continued push to expand payment options and strengthen infrastructure.
Key players and new entrants
- Key competitors span banks and digital-first issuers that can issue mada-linked credentials and integrate with wallet ecosystems; for example, stc bank publicly markets card propositions that support Apple Pay/Mada Pay usage.
- Competition is also shaped by wallet ecosystems that attach cards to stored value and daily financial activity; Urpay operates card-linked terms and has pursued ecosystem partnerships to deepen usage (e.g., remittances).
How the competitive landscape is expected to shape up (next 2-4 years)
- Competition is expected to focus on wallet-native issuance and e-commerce acceptance performance: players that can package onboarding, tokenisation, and domestic and global acceptance under unified integration standards will be positioned to win a larger share of active usage. This is a direct consequence of the new interface’s design goals (mada global networks, unified specs, tokenisation).
- The cross-border dimension is likely to become more material as Alipay+ acceptance rolls toward 2026, pulling more global wallet spend into mada acceptance points and pushing issuers/program managers to support tourist- and visitor-friendly payment experiences without weakening controls.
Scale daily, low-friction spend by making prepaid “wallet-native” on Mada
- Prepaid propositions are increasingly expected to be tokenisable and provisionable into device wallets, so prepaid can be used like a default payment credential (tap-to-pay, in-app, online). SAMA’s Google Pay launch via mada explicitly supports provisioning and managing mada cards and credit cards in Google Wallet, raising consumer expectations for “add-to-wallet” journeys that prepaid programs must match.
- SAMA’s broader agenda is shifting retail payments toward digital rails; the scale of non-cash growth (12.6bn transactions in 2024) increases the opportunity cost of products that cannot be used in the dominant acceptance journeys. As wallet provisioning becomes a mainstream expectation, issuers with weaker tokenisation and customer controls are less competitive on activation and retention.
- This intensifies. Prepaid programs that are not wallet-ready will see weaker engagement, while wallet-native prepaid (virtual + physical, controlled spend features) becomes the default design pattern, especially for digital-first issuers and salary-adjacent spending accounts.
Expand prepaid relevance through e-commerce infrastructure that unifies Mada and global networks
- The new e-commerce payments interface (launched 7 July 2025) is a structural shift: it enables e-commerce providers to rely on national infrastructure and integrate Mada with global payment networks via unified technical specifications, and it introduces payment card tokenisation to strengthen transaction security. This creates a clearer path for prepaid credentials to work consistently across domestic e-commerce and cross-border routed flows.
- SAMA explicitly positions the interface to keep pace with rapid e-commerce growth and to enable smoother integration for online stores, payment gateways, and payment technical service providers. In practice, this reduces merchant-side friction (integration and routing) that can otherwise suppress prepaid acceptance online.
- This intensifies as more processors and gateways seek certification and local routing capability. Mastercard Gateway’s SAMA certification, which signals that global acquiring/processing providers are aligning with the new baseline, should widen the addressable e-commerce acceptance footprint for compliant prepaid programs.
Shift the “value proposition” from card issuance to controls, pricing transparency, and repeat usage
- Competitive differentiation is moving toward controls and predictable economics rather than simply issuing a prepaid credential. SAMA’s Fees Guide for Financial Institutions’ Services sets clear consumer-facing fee expectations across services, including free mada card issuance/renewal and caps/fee lines for certain card use cases, reducing the room for opaque pricing models.
- The policy intent is to ensure fees are within reasonable limits and support broad customer segments (including MSMEs). As fees become more visible and bounded, issuers compete more on onboarding, spend controls, dispute handling, and ecosystem tie-ins (wallet and e-commerce acceptance).
- This intensifies: prepaid issuers/program managers will need stronger unit economics discipline and clearer customer disclosures, while value shifts toward operating capability (risk, disputes, tokenisation readiness) rather than fee-led monetisation.
Extend prepaid usage into remittance-linked and ecosystem-led propositions
- Wallet ecosystems are adding adjacent services that increase the occasions where a prepaid-linked credential is used. One example is Urpay’s collaboration with Western Union to enable international money transfer services within Urpay for consumers in Saudi Arabia, supporting remittance-linked usage journeys that can increase wallet “stickiness” and card utilisation.
- Saudi Arabia has a large expatriate segment and consistent outbound remittance demand; embedding remittance inside wallet ecosystems increases repeat usage and keeps value within the same closed loop, which can then be spent via associated cards/credentials.
- Likely to intensify as wallets compete for primary-account behavior. The implication for prepaid is that “card as an access layer” gains relevance when paired with high-frequency wallet services (transfers, payouts, bill pay), not as a standalone product.
Overview of Prepaid Cards and Digital Wallet Market
Prepaid Card Market Analysis
- Metrics Assessed: The study examines the prepaid card market through various lenses, including transaction value, transaction volume, average transaction value, load value, and the total number of cards in circulation.
- Card Types: A distinction is made between open-loop and closed-loop prepaid cards, providing insights into their respective market shares and growth trajectories.
- Usage Categories: The report segments the prepaid card market into various categories such as general-purpose cards, business and administrative expense cards, travel forex cards, and meal cards.
- Business Segmentation: Further segmentation is provided based on business size and type, including small-scale businesses, mid-tier businesses, enterprise-level businesses, government entities, and retail consumers.
- Sector-Specific Applications: The analysis extends to specific sectors utilizing prepaid cards, including transit and toll payments, healthcare and wellness services, social security and other government benefit programs, fuel purchases, utilities, and more.
Digital Wallet Market Insights
- Key Segments: The digital wallet market is dissected across five primary spending categories: retail shopping, travel, entertainment and gaming, dining establishments, and recharge and bill payments.
- Performance Metrics: For each segment, the report evaluates transaction value, transaction volume, and average transaction value, offering a granular view of consumer spending behaviors.
- Retail Spend Breakdown: An in-depth analysis is provided for retail spending via digital wallets, covering categories such as food and grocery, health and beauty products, apparel and footwear, books, music and video, consumer electronics, pharmacy and wellness, gas stations, restaurants and bars, toys, kids and baby products, services, and other miscellaneous categories.
Virtual Prepaid Card Market Segmentation
- Categories Analyzed: The virtual prepaid card market is segmented into key categories, including general-purpose cards, gift cards, entertainment and gaming cards, teen and campus cards, business and administrative expense cards, payroll cards, meal cards, travel forex cards, transit and toll cards, social security and other government benefit program cards, fuel cards, utilities, and other miscellaneous categories.
- Performance Evaluation: For each category, the report assesses transaction value, providing insights into the adoption and usage patterns of virtual prepaid cards across different consumer segments.
Consumer Usage Trends
- Age Groups: Identifying usage patterns across different age demographics.
- Income Levels: Analyzing how income brackets influence prepaid card adoption and usage.
- Gender: Examining differences in usage trends between genders.
For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/ftsvze
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- Saudi Arabian Prepaid Card and Digital Wallet Market
