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KSA To Roll Out Google Pay And Alipay+ As Digital Payments Surge
Google Pay will arrive this year and Alipay+ by 2026 through mada, part of SAMA’s push to expand cashless payments under Vision 2030.
Google Pay will soon launch in Saudi Arabia, the Kingdom’s central bank confirmed during the Money20/20 Middle East conference in Riyadh. The move marks an expansion of the country’s digital payments ecosystem and supports its Vision 2030 target of lifting cashless transactions to 70% by 2025.
The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has also signed an agreement with Ant International to deploy Alipay+ services by 2026. Both Google Pay and Alipay+ will be routed through mada, the national payments network, ensuring compatibility with domestic cards and retail systems.
SAMA described Google Pay as offering “an advanced and secure payments experience,” allowing users to provision and manage mada cards and credit cards directly in the Google Wallet app. Officials said the launch is part of wider efforts to strengthen infrastructure and support the Kingdom’s fintech ambitions.
The Alipay+ agreement will allow visitors to make purchases in Saudi Arabia using international wallets linked to the platform, streamlining cross-border transactions and reinforcing the Kingdom’s role as a payments hub.
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Speaking in Riyadh, SAMA Governor Ayman Al-Sayari struck an optimistic note: the number of Saudi fintech firms jumped from 82 at the end of 2022 to around 281 by August 2025. He put cumulative sector investment at $2.39 billion and described the payments system as a standout success, with electronic payments making up 79% of retail transactions in 2024 — amounting to 12.6 billion transactions, up from 10.8 billion the year before.
Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan added that the Saudi financial market has reached nearly $640 billion, making it one of the fastest-growing globally. He said work is underway to integrate artificial intelligence into financial systems, part of broader reforms tied to Vision 2030.
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Nano Banana 2 Arrives In MENA For Google Gemini Users
Google brings its latest image model to Gemini and Search, adding 4K output and tighter text control for regional users.
Google has opened access to Nano Banana 2 across the Middle East and North Africa, pushing its newest image model into everyday tools rather than keeping it inside the exclusive (and expensive) Pro tier.
The rollout spans the Google Gemini desktop and mobile apps, and extends to Google Search through Lens and AI Mode. Developers can also test it in preview via AI Studio and the Gemini API.
Nano Banana 2 runs on Gemini Flash, Google’s fast inference layer. The focus is speed, but also control. Users can export visuals from 512px up to 4K, adjusting aspect ratios for everything from vertical social posts to widescreen displays.
The model maintains character likeness across up to five figures and preserves fidelity for as many as 14 objects within a single workflow. This enables visual continuity across scenes, iterations, or edits — supporting projects like short films, storyboards, and multi-scene narratives. Text rendering has also been improved, delivering legible typography in mockups and greeting cards, with built-in translation and localization directly within images.
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Under the hood, the system taps Gemini’s broader knowledge base and pulls in real-time information and imagery from web search to render specific subjects more accurately. Lighting and fine detail have been upgraded, without slowing output.
By embedding the model inside Gemini and Search, Google is normalizing advanced image generation for a mass audience. In MENA, where startups and marketing teams are leaning heavily on AI to scale content across languages and borders, that shift lands at a practical moment.
The move also folds creative tooling deeper into search itself, so that image generation is no longer a separate workflow. It now sits right next to the query box.
Nano Banana 2 Arrives In MENA For Google Gemini Users
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