Saudi payments technology company Geidea has secured certification to process e-commerce transactions through the kingdom's National Payments Gateway and approval for its smartphone-based card acceptance service, the company said on September 21.

The approvals come as card-based e-commerce in Saudi Arabia expands faster than almost any market in the region. Transactions on mada cards reached SAR325.2bn ($86.7bn) in 2025, up close to 65% from SAR197.4bn ($52.6bn) in 2024, with volumes rising to about 1.77bn from 1.13bn.

The NPG eMSP certification allows Geidea to route e-commerce transactions directly from its own payment gateway to the national gateway, connecting to domestic and international card networks including mada, Visa and Mastercard.

Its SoftPOS product, which turns smartphones into card terminals, has been certified under the MPoC standard, and the company is completing technical requirements to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone in the Saudi market.

The certification covers card-on-file storage for repeat purchases, recurring payments and subscriptions, pre-authorisation holds, in-app payments, travel sector payments, refunds, cancellations and reversals.

Geidea will switch to the new processing route gradually while keeping existing routes as a fallback to maintain service continuity. Current merchants will not need new integrations or software changes and can continue using existing application programming interfaces without repeating integration testing.

"These developments represent an extension of the company's strategy to build integrated capabilities covering the various stages of the payments system, from transaction processing and connection to the national infrastructure through to payment acceptance technologies and the merchant experience," said Abdullah bin Faisal Al Othman, founder and chairman of Geidea.

The company was investing in technical infrastructure to process payments more efficiently while giving merchants more flexible acceptance options and meeting security and compliance requirements, he said, based on its reading of shifting consumer and merchant behaviour towards digital payments.