Q1: What is SADAD?

SADAD Payment System (SADAD) was established by the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA) to be the national Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP) service provider for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The core mandate for SADAD is to facilitate and streamline bill payment transactions of end consumers through all channels of the Kingdom’s Banks.  SADAD was launched on October 3rd, 2004.

Q2: What are the services SADAD provide? 

• EBPP (Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment)
• Prepaid Payments service
• Real-time payment notification to Billers
• Provide reconciliation reports showing a breakdown of all transactions processed by SADAD
• Collect the money from all the Banks and transfer it to the Biller’s Bank account in one business day
• Provide periodical reports to billers about all the Biller related activities through SADAD
• Access to SADAD Portal which have real-time data about all the transactions, and provide a mean to communicate between the Biller and SADAD
• Provide access to all banking channels (Branch, ATMs, Phone Banking, etc.)
• Provide a help desk dedicated for serving Billers and Banks

 Q3: How are bills paid with SADAD?
 
Currently, customers pay bills through SADAD using all the available banking channels, and they are:

• Bank Branch
• Automatic Teller Machine (ATM)
• Online Banking
• Phone Banking

to learn more about paying bills with SADAD click here.

Q4: How will consumers benefit from SADAD?

• Time saving when paying bills
• Proactive reminder service
• Flexibility in payments  
• Reduction in service cuts
• Less cash handling
• Bill Consolidation

Q5: How does the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Economy benefit from SADAD?

SADAD is expected to benefit the KSA economy in a number of ways:

• Time saving and efficiency improvements
• Capital efficiency
• Development of national standards
• Catalyst for propagation of electronic services
• Platform for e-Government

Q6: Why did SAMA encourage electronic payments?

By using Sadad electronic payment system cash usage will be reduced, fore cash usage can be risky either by being stolen, lost, or damaged. Therefore people will not need to carry cash in order to pay their bills.

Q7: How will billers reduce their costs with SADAD?

Costs will be reduced by:

• Lower CapEx due to reduced investments in infrastructure and software development Lower OpEx due to fewer resources required to build, operate and support outsourced EBPP.
• Faster collection of bills, leading to lower working capital.
• Single interface point– no need to link separately with multiple banks.
• Lower reconciliation processing costs.
• Reduced disconnections due to delay in bill processing.
• Reduced CSRs through fewer customers paying at Biller sites.

Q8: What are the onboarding activities that should be done from the biller’s side?

In order to join SADAD, billers should go through SADAD’s onboarding process, which includes eight key activities.  All onboarding activities are owned by the Biller with on-going support from SADAD Integration Unit (SIU):

1. Detailed Impact Analysis.
2. Business Rules Assessment.
3. Integration Planning.
4. Integration & Development.
5. Testing.
6. On-boarding Migration Planning.
7. Training.
8. Go-Live.

Q9: Is it necessary to have a bank account at a certain bank to be able to pay bills from their branch?

SAMA has mandated that all banks must accept bill payments at their branches whether the person paying is (banked or unbanked) "i.e. he/she does not need to be a customer of the bank where the bill is being paid."

Q10: What are SADAD’s banking channels?