Middle East

Saudi Arabia ATM transactions break records

Considering the size of Saudi with 17 million population, this is an astounding number of ATM transactions reported at Al Bawaba.com.  In fact, its so astounding I think there must be an error.

Canada with 32 million population does 1.1 billion ATM transactions annually, just for perspective.  So Saudi is doing 8 times that much, with half the population!

The same report indicates this activity is handled through a mere 5K ATM machines,vs Canada with 50K ATM’s. 

ATM’s are relativley new in Saudi, and cash remains the preferred method of payment.  But the industry is enhancing rapidly, with real time clearing implemented, and cheque truncation expected later this year (2006).

albawaba.com middle east news information::Saudi ATM statistics

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) announced that Saudis had withdrawn SR 68 billion worth of cash through the available ATM’s networks in the Kingdom through the first half of 2006.

According to Al-Yaum newspaper, citing SAMA report, Saudis had also executed 4,320,474,149 transactions through the available ATM’s networks in the Kingdom through the first half of 2006. The report added that the Saudi banks had issued 359,117,900 ATM cards through the first half of 2006.

The total number of the ATM machines in the Kingdom amounted to 5,377 machines. © 2006 Mean Report (www.menareport.com)

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6 thoughts on “Saudi Arabia ATM transactions break records”

  1. I thin there’s an error in the Canadian Pop figures. Isn’t it 32 million, not 32 billion ?

  3. The figures can’t possibly be true. I don’t believe there are 359 MILLION ATM cards in Saudi Arabia: that would be more than 10 ATM cards per head of population. And 4.3 BILLION transactions in 6 months? That’s more than one transaction per day for every single person (man, woman and child). There’s got to be a mistranslation somewhere.

  4. In fact, if my back of the envelope calculations are correct, it’s one transaction per ATM every 17 seconds, 24×7. How do they keep them full?

  6. No surprise in terms of the Saudi ATM card, some of Saudis carry more than three cards for the same account. Saudis also have more than one account ???

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