SAMA subsidiary appoints firm to implement QR-based Saudi payment system

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Saudi Payments, a fully owned subsidiary of Saudi Arabia Monetary Authority (SAMA), appointed High-tech Payment Systems (HPS) to provide a unified QR code platform to enable banks, wallet providers and fintechs to interact seamlessly within an interoperable platform.

The introduction of QR codes will be an important step towards providing a universally consistent experience for both merchants and consumers, while also ensuring inter-operability and acceptance of secure payments.

The goal is to develop an integrated payment environment that allows all parties to benefit in an open-loop payment environment based on the latest messaging standards - ISO 20022.

It means merchants, individual customers, and service providers will be linked together to complete payment using the same code regardless of the service provider or scheme, the company said in a statement.

Multiple payment types are supported; information can both be fixed in a static QR code and used for multiple transactions, or a dynamic QR code used for individual transactions.