Mastercard Gateway Boosts Saudi E-commerce with New Certification Approval

Editorial Team

Last updated 30-11-2025

3 min

Mastercard Gateway is now certified by SAMA to enhance Saudi Arabia's e-commerce payments.

The new certification allows local routing, tokenisation, and connection to the mada payment scheme.

This aligns with Vision 2030, pushing for digital transformation within the Kingdom.

The move builds on Mastercard's regional expansion and supports over half a million merchants.

Local gateways face increased competition, but this drives overall ecosystem growth.

Mastercard Gateway has picked up fresh certification from the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) to support the Kingdom’s new E‑commerce Payments Interface, a move that should make online transactions in Saudi Arabia quicker, safer and, frankly, a lot less of a faff for everyone involved. I’ve seen plenty of regional startups struggle with clunky payment rails over the years, especially when Arageek teams chat with founders about scaling across the GCC, so this kind of upgrade does tend to hit the spot.

With the new approval in hand, Mastercard Gateway can now process ecommerce payments directly inside the Kingdom, using local routing and tools like tokenisation and fraud prevention, plus a direct link into mada, the national payments scheme. It’s all pretty technical, but the end result is simple enough: merchants get lower latency and customers get smoother checkouts. And believe it or not, in a booming ecommerce market, shaving even a second or two off payment time can make a real dent in cart abandonment.

The wider aim ties neatly into Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which has been pushing the country to digitise at pace. The company’s regional country manager, Saud Swar, highlighted the role of secure tech and strong infrastructure, saying the certification aligns with the potential of ecommerce in the Kingdom. I reckon the timing is quite strategic too, as the sector is evolving so quickly that any gateway lacking local integration risks being left behind.

This shift also builds on Mastercard Gateway’s on-soil launch last October, which already marked a significant step in its regional footprint. Backed by a network of over 250 acquirers globally, the platform now connects more than half a million merchants to innovations like biometric verification and 3D Secure. For context, it processed upwards of one billion transactions in Saudi Arabia in 2024 alone—across more than 35 supported payment methods—so the scale is nothing to sneeze at, even if the market sometimes feels a bit overcrowded.

On the flip side, while the certification strengthens Saudi Arabia’s digital infrastructure, it also adds competitive pressure on local and regional gateways trying to carve out space. One founder told me earlier this year that keeping up with global players can be “an uphill climb,” and, well… I mean, he wasn’t wrong. But as Arageek readers know, competition usually pushes the ecosystem to level up. It’s messy, sometimes annoying, but definately healthy in the long run.

All in all, this new certification underscores Mastercard’s continued bet on the Kingdom’s digital economy and its fast-growing ecommerce scene—an area that many startups in the region are itching to tap into, if the payment pipes behave themselves.

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