The Saudi Central Bank has appointed Mohsen AlZahrani as the head of its virtual assets and central bank digital currency program, which could see the Gulf state getting more into crypto.
AlZahrani was a former managing director for consultancy firm Accenture, Bloomberg reported Sunday (Sept. 4). He’ll now be reporting to Ziad Al Yousef, the Central Bank’s deputy governor for development and technology, according to sources who said the team has been engaging with some of the biggest crypto firms worldwide on regulations.
Saudi Arabia has traditionally taken a more cautious approach on virtual assets, and officials have had concerns about the speculative nature of the coins. However, the United Arab Emirates has seen a lot of success as a crypto hub recently, prompting Riyadh to look more into developing its own program.
This comes after Riyadh banned banks from processing transactions involving crypto in 2018, though there were workarounds for trade. The kingdom is the biggest economy in the Middle East, as it has a fairly affluent population — making it a target for any firm operating in the region.
The country has seen other innovations lately, including local firm Mobily Pay partnering with MoneyGram International to offer users more abilities to send money around the world.
Read more: MoneyGram Teams With Mobily Pay to Help Saudi Arabia Mobile Wallet Users
This will grow MoneyGram’s fleet of integrations for its white-label product, giving FinTechs access to its global money transfer network.
Mobily Pay will be able to add new services and scale its suite of digital offerings, and MoneyGram will also expand the number of payments it processes through its application programming interface (API)-driven infrastructure.
“The digitization of our global network is a core component of our growth strategy, and we continue to report exceptional results,” MoneyGram Chairman and CEO Alex Holmes said in a company press release, adding that digital partnerships would add more value for customers.
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