You can feel the tectonic plates of finance shifting in Saudi Arabia right now. The tremors are not coming from the established banks, the familiar giants. They are radiating from a newer, faster-growing part of the financial landscape. Finance companies, the non-bank lenders, are on a tear.
This is not a quiet trend. It is a central pillar of Vision 2030’s plan to reshape the national economy. The Financial Sector Development Program has a clear goal: widen access to credit, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. The Saudi Central Bank, known as SAMA, has become a prolific licensor in response. Its roster of authorized finance companies jumped from 62 at the end of 2024 to 77. The sector’s total credit extended sits around 113 billion Saudi riyals, roughly $30 billion.
Demand is surging from consumers and entrepreneurs who find traditional bank doors only partly open. This gap is the opportunity. Companies are rushing to fill it with everything from auto leases and microloans to buy now, pay later plans.
Into this whirlwind steps Raya Financing. Their story is a microcosm of the larger shift. Their total assets ballooned 56 percent in 2025 to over 3 billion riyals. Growth at that speed creates its own problems. A company that started with car loans might see a logical next step in home finance. A firm built on retail leasing may spot a ripe market in SME credit. But stitching together different technology systems for each new product line is a recipe for operational chaos and slow motion.
That is the core challenge Raya faced. And it is why their recent technology partnership matters. They have selected Temenos Core, a core banking platform, to power everything they do now and plan to do next. The deal is a strategic bet on simplicity and agility.
Temenos will host the platform in a private cloud within Saudi Arabia, a nod to both data sovereignty and performance. The system is designed to be configurable. This means Raya can manage retail finance, auto leases, and future products like BNPL or SME loans on one common technological foundation. They avoid the bespoke coding marathons that cripple innovation at larger, older institutions.
Mohammed Makkawi, Raya’s Chief Information Officer, framed the choice in pragmatic terms. He cited Temenos’s local experience and the platform’s built-in functionality for Shariah-compliant finance, a non-negotiable in the Saudi market. But the real prize is flexibility. “Temenos Core gives us the flexibility to manage a broader range of financing products,” Makkawi stated. The goal is to simplify internal operations and bring new offerings to market faster.
This single deal reflects a broader truth about modern financial competition. Scale is no longer just about balance sheet size. It is about technological leverage. A platform like Temenos Core acts as a force multiplier. It allows a growing company to pivot and expand without rebuilding its engine every time.
The partnerships behind the platform are also telling. Microsoft hosts the Temenos Banking Cloud on Azure, providing the global, scalable infrastructure. Consulting giant Accenture acts as an implementation partner, helping institutions navigate the complex transition. This ecosystem approach reduces risk for a company like Raya. They are not buying just software. They are buying into a tested path to growth.
SAMA’s latest figures show the finance company sector growing at a compound annual rate of 13 percent since 2020. That is an unsustainable clip without the right operational backbone. The strains would show quickly in clumsy customer service, glacial product launches, and rising compliance costs.
Raya’s move is a preemptive strike against those strains. It is a recognition that in the new Saudi financial arena, ambition must be matched by architectural savvy. The race is on. The companies that win will be those that understand technology is not a support function. It is the very track they are running on.
- Widen access to credit
- Support small and medium-sized businesses
- Increase total credit extended
- Accelerate finance company growth
- Embrace technological innovation
- Ensure Shariah-compliant finance
| Year | Total Assets (in Billion Riyals) | Growth Rate (%) |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 2.2 | N/A |
| 2025 | 3.0 | 56 |
