Saudi_Payments_Network
The Saudi Payments Network (Arabic: الشبكة السعودية للمدفوعات) or mada[1] (Arabic: مدى, lit. 'Extend', formerly SPAN) is the only and major payment system in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia established by Saudi Central Bank (SAMA). It connects all ATM and Point of Sale (PoS) terminals throughout the country to a central payment switch which in turn re-routes the financial transactions to the card issuer (local bank, Visa, American Express or MasterCard). All banks in Saudi Arabia are required by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) to issue ATM cards fully compatible with the network. All services are provided to the customer free of charge, regardless of the ATM used, its operator, or the customer's card issuer.
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Mada provides its services through over than 17,000 ATM machines and over 225,000 POS terminals in the Kingdom. In cooperation with global payment systems such as Visa, MasterCard, and Maestro, mada allows access to millions of ATMs and POS terminals worldwide.[2]
The network has recently been upgraded to SPAN2 which is compliant with EMV standards and implements a higher capacity infrastructure and therefore less processing time, especially at POS terminals, resolving a major problem of the first generation SPAN system.
