The Central Bank of Saudi Arabia has put forward the “Banking System” project to request public consultations, calling in this regard on the public, interested parties and specialists “to enhance the principle of transparency and participation” to express their views and observations on the project, through the “Istishla” platform of the National Competitiveness Center.
The Central Bank said in a statement today that it had prepared the banking system project based on its terms of reference stipulated in its system, in an effort to keep abreast of developments and developments in the banking sector, to ensure the continued stability and growth of the sector, stimulate investment in it, and contribute to financial stability in the Kingdom, as well as Enhancing the protection of depositors and customers.
He pointed out that the draft system comes as a result of the continuous internal assessments carried out by the Central Bank in this regard, and keeping pace with the comparative legislative developments of a number of countries, which were benefited from when preparing its provisions, in addition to the recommendations issued by the relevant international organizations, according to the Saudi Press Agency. SPA”.
And the Central Bank indicated that it expects the new draft system to continue to organize the banking sector in a distinct manner, as is the case with the banking control system currently in force, where the most important basic elements of the draft system are to expand the definition of banking business “through a separate article due to its importance” to explicitly include The activity of granting credit, defining the objectives and scope of the system accurately, as well as expanding it to include the practice of banking business from persons outside the Kingdom to persons residing inside the Kingdom as determined by the Central Bank of Saudi Arabia, for several purposes, including customer protection.
One of the most important basic elements of the project is also strengthening the regulatory framework of the Deposit Protection Fund, according to which the fund pays deposits to depositors according to the declared coverage limit in cases that require this, in order to protect depositors and contribute to financial stability, in addition to strengthening the regulatory framework for bank secrecy. in the Kingdom by following the duty of confidentiality model as a general rule, with a variety of limited exceptions.
“These cases will be precisely defined through the regulatory framework, in addition to developing a regulatory framework for regulating financial technologies in the banking sector, according to private and general texts that will cover digital banking services, open banking services, regulatory and supervisory techniques, big data, etc., and update the framework of violations, crimes and penalties.” .
The Central Bank of Saudi Arabia stated that the views and observations on the “Banking System” project will be received within 30 days, provided that all the comments and observations are the subject of study with the aim of submitting the final version of this project to the regulatory authority.
The draft system can be viewed by visiting the “Istiklaa” platform of the National Competitiveness Center via the link: https://istitlaa.ncc.gov.sa/ar/Finance/SAMA/DraftBankingLaw/Pages/default.aspx.
