Crypto apps in Saudi Arabia and the fintech apps around them

The best crypto app in Saudi Arabia is not one app. It is a pair: a crypto app that holds or trades the coins, and a Saudi fintech app that moves the riyals. For card buyers that pair is a card-first exchange plus Apple Pay; for P2P buyers it is the Binance, Bybit or OKX app plus stc pay, urpay or a bank app. Understanding which side is regulated, and which is not, is the most useful thing you can learn before you install anything.

We checked the Saudi App Store listings, the fintech apps' own sites and their published terms in October 2026. Where a company says nothing about crypto, we report that rather than read permission or prohibition into it.

Two layers: the riyal apps and the crypto apps

Layer one is local. stc pay (now stc bank), urpay, AlinmaPay, D360 and your bank's own app are licensed or supervised by SAMA, hold your riyals, and run on Saudi rails such as mada and SARIE. Layer two is international. Exchange apps such as Binance, Bybit, OKX and CEX.IO, and wallet apps such as Trust Wallet or Exodus, hold crypto and are licensed somewhere else, if anywhere. No crypto exchange holds a Saudi licence, and SAMA-supervised banks and payment providers do not offer crypto services. Crypto is not prohibited for individuals, but it is unregulated here, and the 2018 Standing Committee warning that nobody is licensed to deal in virtual currencies still describes the position.

The two layers touch in only two places. One is a card payment: you pay an exchange with a Saudi Visa, Mastercard or Apple Pay. The other is P2PP2PPeer-to-peer: you buy crypto from another person on an exchange, pay them by bank or wallet transfer, and the exchange holds their coins in escrow until they confirm receipt.: you send riyals from a Saudi app to another person, and the exchange releases their coins to you. Everything else stays separate.

stc pay, urpay, AlinmaPay and D360: what each one does with crypto

stc pay / stc bank. stc pay now operates as stc bank, licensed by Council of Ministers decision No. 671 of 22 June 2021 and supervised by SAMA. The app offers transfers to contacts and to local and international banks, savings products and mada and Visa cards. Its published general terms contain no clause on cryptocurrency at all, neither a permission nor a ban. In crypto it shows up only as a payment method that P2P sellers list on Binance, Bybit and OKX, according to third-party reports. Our USDT with stc pay guide covers that route in detail.

urpay. The wallet associated with Al Rajhi Bank offers local and international transfers, salary payments, mada and Visa Platinum cards and SADAD bill payments. Its site does not mention crypto. Its crypto relevance is specific: Binance added urpay as an official payment method on its SAR P2P market on 29 April 2022, alongside Liv. KSA. See buying with urpay.

AlinmaPay. Operated by the Saudi Financial Technology Company and licensed by SAMA, it handles domestic and international transfers for individuals and businesses. Cards, Apple Pay and crypto are not mentioned on its site. Like stc pay, it matters to crypto only as a transfer rail: see AlinmaPay and P2P.

D360 Bank. It presents itself as the first Shariah-compliant digital bank in Saudi Arabia: a SAMA-regulated closed joint-stock company with SAR 2.1 billion in capital, licensed by Council of Ministers decree No. 389, headquartered in Riyadh. It advertises a debit card with no international fees and links an Apple Pay page. It says nothing about crypto. A card without international fees is interesting to anyone paying a USD-priced exchange, but whether a given exchange's processor accepts it is untested, so treat that as something to try with a small amount.

mada, SARIE and Apple Pay: the rails underneath

madamadaSaudi Arabia's domestic debit-card network under SAMA. Almost every local bank card is a mada card, often co-badged with Visa or Mastercard. is the default way Saudis pay. In one payments processor's sample (Codapay, October 2024 to September 2025) mada made up 59.9% of transactions, STC Pay 18%, international cards 16.8% and Apple Pay 4.6%; the same source counts around 19 million mada users and notes a 72% Android, 28% iOS split. It is a sample, not national data, but it explains a common frustration: a mada-only debit card is a domestic product, and foreign card processors used by exchanges often decline it. Test reports find that credit cards and Apple Pay go through more often.

SARIESARIESaudi Arabian Riyal Interbank Express: the SAMA-operated system that moves riyals between Saudi banks, including instant transfers. is the interbank system behind instant riyal transfers between Saudi banks. It is what carries your money when you pay a P2P seller from your bank app. Apple Pay launched in the Kingdom in 2019 with mada support and now works with most local bank cards; on card-first exchanges it is often the payment that succeeds when a plain card does not, because it uses a different authorisation path. Our card buying guide goes deeper into declines.

Exchange apps on the Saudi App Store

The Binance app is on the Saudi storefront as "Binance: Buy Bitcoin & Crypto", sold by Binance Switzerland AG. Its language field lists English and ten others but not Arabic, although the description says live chat runs in 18 languages including Arabic. That gap between metadata and support is typical: the "Languages" line tells you how the app is localised for the store, not whether an Arabic agent will answer your P2P appeal. Bybit and OKX also publish mobile apps used for SAR P2P; whatever the app, check that the developer name matches the exchange before installing. BitOasis's App Store listing names Saudi Arabia and SAR.

CEX.IO, operating since 2013, works on the web and through its own mobile app as a card-first platform (we did not audit its Saudi store listing, so check the developer name): Visa, Mastercard, Apple Pay and Google Pay in USD, with Saudi residents served by CEX OVRS LLC and no local licence, like everyone else. One app we could not find: we did not locate a Rain listing on the Saudi App Store, although rain.com mentions Arabic and English support. If someone sends you a "Rain" link that is not from rain.com, do not use it. For a full comparison see the best exchanges for Saudi residents.

Wallet apps, and what "no Arabic in metadata" means

Trust Wallet, MetaMask, Phantom, Exodus, Coinbase Wallet, SafePal and Keeper (formerly Tonkeeper) are all listed on the Saudi App Store. None lists Arabic in its App Store metadata. "No Arabic in metadata" means exactly that: the developer has not declared an Arabic localisation to Apple. It does not prove the app has no Arabic strings inside, but we could not verify any, so plan on English screens. For a wallet that is manageable, because the core actions are few: Receive, Send, Swap, Backup. What matters more is that these are self-custodySelf-custodyYou hold the private keys. Nobody can freeze or recover your coins, which also means losing your recovery phrase loses the money. apps: no ID, no account, and nobody to call if you lose the recovery phrase.

One Saudi-specific note: a reviewer on Coinbase Wallet's Saudi listing complained that some features were unavailable in the Kingdom, and the developer replied that it was working to expand. Wallet apps can still restrict their built-in buy or swap features by country even when the wallet itself works. Our wallets hub compares them, and the reviews of Trust Wallet and Exodus go further.

The Pi Network app

Pi is probably the crypto app most Saudis have heard of without ever opening an exchange. The official app is free, mining is invite-only, and the project's Open Network launched on 20 February 2025. Since then Pi has been listed on OKX, Gate, Bitget and MEXC, but not on Binance, Bybit or KuCoin. CEX.IO lists it too, but as an IOUIOUA token representing a claim on the real coin. You get price exposure but cannot withdraw it to the coin's own network until the exchange enables it.: its page calls PI "a placeholder for future Pi Network tokens", so it cannot be withdrawn to a Pi mainnet wallet. The Pi app itself is not an exchange and not a bank; treat any "Pi buyer" who contacts you on WhatsApp, or any site asking for your Pi wallet passphrase, as a scam. Our Pi Coin guide covers price, KYC and selling.

App security: the rules that prevent most losses

1. Official stores only

   Saudi App Store or Google Play. Never an APK from WhatsApp, Telegram or a "VIP group". Check the developer name (for Binance on iOS in KSA: Binance Switzerland AG).

2. Turn on two-factor authentication

   Use an authenticator app on every exchange account, not SMS alone. Add an anti-phishing code if the exchange offers one.

3. Separate the riyal app from the crypto app

   Never share an OTP from stc pay, urpay or your bank with anyone "from the exchange". Exchanges never need your bank codes.

4. Back up wallet phrases on paper

   Write recovery phrases by hand and store them offline. No screenshots, no cloud notes, no chats.

5. Lock the phone and the apps

   Face ID or a strong PIN on the device and inside each finance app, so a stolen phone is not a stolen wallet.

Most losses we hear about from Saudi users come from social engineering rather than hacked apps: fake support accounts, fake payment screenshots in P2P, and "investment managers" who move the conversation to WhatsApp. Read the scams guide before your first P2P trade. And if you are looking for a card that spends crypto directly, our crypto cards page explains why almost none is confirmed for the Kingdom.

Frequently asked questions

Sources and references

1. stc bank — official site (SAMA-supervised; Council of Ministers decision 671)
2. stc bank — general terms and conditions
3. urpay — official site
4. AlinmaPay — official site (Saudi Financial Technology Company, licensed by SAMA)
5. D360 Bank — official site (Shariah-compliant digital bank, SAR 2.1bn capital)
6. Binance on the Saudi App Store (Binance Switzerland AG)
7. Coda — Saudi Arabia payments market guide (mada, STC Pay, cards, Apple Pay in its sample)
8. CEX.IO — Buy Pi (IOU) page
9. Saudi Central Bank — Standing Committee warning on virtual currencies (2018)

Related pages

• USDT with STC PayBuy Tether with STC Pay (stc bank) via P2P
• Buy with urpayAn official Binance P2P payment method
• Buy with AlinmaPayAlinmaPay and Alinma Bank on P2P
• Best walletsMobile and cold wallets that work in Saudi
• Crypto cardsWhat is actually available to Saudi residents
• Best exchanges8 platforms that serve Saudi residents, compared