Monsha'at and STC Bank sign a SAR 5B SME financing agreement

RIYADH — Monsha'at, Saudi Arabia's SME authority, and STC Bank have signed a cooperation agreement covering up to SAR 5 billion, about $1.33 billion, in Sharia-compliant SME financing, WAYA reports from the sidelines of Money20/20 Middle East in Riyadh.

The programme spans working capital, equipment, receivables and trade finance, with facilities running up to ten years. It pairs the state's small-business mandate with a digital bank's balance sheet and distribution.

Monsha'at has been the Kingdom's main instrument for pushing credit and capability into small businesses, and pairing with a digital bank lets the programme run on modern origination rails rather than legacy branch processes. STC Bank, born from stc's payments business, has been building its SME lending book aggressively since converting to a full bank.

The read: Saudi SME lending keeps adding capacity, and the binding constraint is shifting from capital supply to underwriting quality. Watch the programme's utilization and default experience over the next year, because that data decides whether the next facility is SAR 5 billion again or SAR 15 billion.