The seven major banks that the Saudi Electricity Company signed an agreement with include the National Commercial Bank, Bank Albilad, Al-Rajhi Bank, Riyad Bank, Samba Financial Group, Banque Saudi Fransi and the Saudi British Bank.

The financing is a 7-year medium-term facility and is unsecured syndicated borrowing.
Fahad Al Sudairi, president and chief executive of SEC told the media, “SEC is a national utility, delivering electric services to a growing customer base of almost 9.8 million subscribers in Saudi Arabia. Our vigorous focus is to continue demonstrating operational efficiency improvement, achieve a quantum leap in promoting automation and digitization across our business and further enhance the customer service.”

“This successful financing comes as part of SEC’s plans to finance its general corporate purposes as well as finance its capital projects such as smart meters, grid reliability improvement and new interconnection projects. The financing will also lengthen the average maturity of our financing mix and is expected to reflect positively on reducing our weighted average cost of funding.”

Recent media reports revealed that the Saudi Electricity Company is implementing eight projects in Saudi Arabia’s Hail region with contracts worth more than $159 million.
The projects are in line to increase the electricity generating capacity of the kingdom and meet the growing demand.

Last month, the company announced a net loss of SR869 million for the second quarter of 2020, compared to a profit of SR789 million during the same period last year.

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Mastercard Send for Cross-Border enables banks to send cross-border payments for various payment types, including person-to-person and business-to-business payments. 

Through the partnership, SABB payments customers will be able to reach nearly 90 percent of the world’s population. Increasing interconnectedness across the global economy has built new opportunities in the cross-border payments. The new launch will reinforce capabilities in international money transfer services such as real-time payments. 

The Mastercard SABB payments partnership marks a significant milestone in financial landscape. J.K. Khalil, General Manager, Saudi Arabia & Bahrain, Mastercard, told the local media that, “The ability to make cross-border payments has never been more important, especially as Saudi Arabia works towards its vision of becoming a global model of excellence and connects its digital economy to the world. The ability to make fast, frictionless cross-border transfers is crucial in driving digitisation in the country as we aim to further support the growth of the digital economy in line with Vision 2030.”

Last month, SABB started using blockchain technology for financing international trade transactions between Bahrain and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is expected to introduce higher levels of efficiency, transparency and security in new markets. With that, it puts Bahrain and the Kingdom in the forefront of global trade, a press release said. 

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The media reports said that RBS would see an increase in income on the disposal of Alawwal Bank stakes for shares of £400 million received in Saudi British Bank and reduction in £4.7 billion of  risk-weighted assets.

The merger between Alawwal Bank and Saudi British Bank has come at the right time. For years, RBS has been trying to sell its stake in Alawwal Bank but remained unsuccessful. It has been reducing investment banking operations worldwide in order to focus on consumer and commercial lending, media reports said.

RBS also said that the deal would ensure complete removal of £300million of legacy liabilities. This way, the changes would increase its CET1 core capital ratio by 60 basis points.

But that’s not all. RBS chief executive Ross McEwan said in a statement that the merger will encourage RBS to direct focus on its target markets.

The banking landscape in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is drastically changing with lenders’ rising interest in mergers. The Kingdom’s biggest lender National Commercial Bank announced last year that it is in talks with Riyad Bank for a merger.

Last year, RBS acquired a 25 percent stake in Loot over two rounds of investment, investing £5 million into the company. Later, the bank subtly hinted that it might buy the business, but cancelled its decision to proceed, media reports said.

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