mada and local cards in Saudi Arabia: what changes at checkout

A Saudi shopper who types a card number at an online checkout is usually holding a mada card. Many of those cards also carry a Visa or Mastercard logo, and that second logo hides a decision the merchant has to make: process the payment on the domestic mada network through a Saudi acquirer, or on the international network through whoever acquires the card. The two routes behave differently on approval, cost, Apple Pay, captures and refunds.

This article explains how big mada has become online, what a co-badged card means for routing, how Apple Pay changes the picture, which capture and refund rules differ, where STC Pay and SADAD fit, and the mistakes we see most often. For the method itself, see our mada page; for the wider market, the Saudi Arabia guide.

How much Saudi online spending runs on mada?

Most of it, and the share is still growing. The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) publishes monthly figures for e-commerce spending with mada cards. According to Saudi Gazette’s report of those figures, mada e-commerce spending reached SAR 37.6 billion in July 2026, up 26% on a year earlier. For the second quarter of 2026 the total was SAR 101.4 billion, up 32.3% on the same quarter of 2025.

The transaction counts are just as large. Sharikat Mubasher, citing SAMA, reports 547 million e-commerce transactions with mada cards in the first quarter of 2026, worth SAR 98.3 billion. These figures cover mada debit cards and the wallets that hold them, not credit cards on international networks.

The number of online sellers is rising with it. The Ministry of Commerce counted 48,497 e-commerce commercial registers at the end of the second quarter of 2026, according to Sharikat Mubasher. More domestic sellers means Saudi shoppers increasingly expect checkouts that treat mada as the default card, not as an exception.

Why does a co-badged card need a routing decision?

Because the same card number can travel two ways. Checkout.com’s documentation describes mada as the Kingdom’s domestic payment network, with cards accepted abroad through partnerships with Visa and Mastercard. Outside Saudi Arabia, it says, a mada card behaves as a debit card on the international network. Inside Saudi Arabia, processing it as mada requires a merchant ID from a Saudi acquirer.

That gives a merchant three kinds of Saudi debit card to plan for:

1. Co-badged mada and Visa or Mastercard cards. These can run on either network. The domestic route usually suits them better, because the issuer sees a local payment, but only an acquirer with a Saudi merchant ID can use it.
2. mada-only cards. These have no international brand to fall back on. A checkout without a local mada route cannot take them at all.
3. International credit cards from Saudi banks. These run on Visa, Mastercard or American Express as normal and can go to whichever acquirer approves them best.

The card number tells you which is which before you send anything. BIN routing reads the first digits, finds the brand and issuer, and sends mada cards to the local acquirer. Our article on BIN routing covers the mechanics; the mada-specific point is that the BIN table has to be current. Checkout.com notes that mada frequently updates its list of approved BINs and tells merchants to refresh their copy regularly, because a stale list sends new mada cards down the wrong route.

What changes when the shopper pays with Apple Pay?

Apple Pay is where many Saudi shoppers keep their mada card, and in-store data shows how normal phone payments have become. SAMA figures reported by Saudi Gazette put point-of-sale spending made with mobile phones at SAR 34 billion in July 2026, against SAR 25.7 billion paid with physical cards. Shoppers who pay with their phone in shops expect to do the same online.

The routing question follows the card into the wallet. Checkout.com’s Apple Pay documentation says that a merchant processing mada cards through Apple Pay outside Saudi Arabia must enforce Visa or Mastercard. Its mada guide explains how: remove mada from the supported networks in the Apple Pay request and set a country code other than SA, which stops Apple from forcing the mada network on an international transaction.

The practical consequence is that the Apple Pay configuration has to match the route. A merchant with a Saudi acquirer can offer mada inside Apple Pay. A merchant processing from abroad configures Apple Pay for the international networks, and accepts that mada-only cards in the wallet will not work. Mixing the two, for example a Saudi country code with a foreign acquirer, produces declines that look random from the outside.

Which capture and refund rules differ for mada?

Two rules catch merchants that are used to international cards. Checkout.com’s documentation says mada cards do not support partial captures or authorisation requests. If a merchant asks for either, the payment is captured anyway; the gateway’s automatic void after seven days then fails, and the acquirer has to issue a refund instead. Its advice for Saudi Arabia is to use only automatic captures and refunds.

That changes three common flows:

• Ship later. A store that authorises at checkout and captures at dispatch cannot do that with mada. It takes the full amount at checkout and refunds anything it cannot ship.
• Split shipments. There is no partial capture to match each parcel. One capture at checkout, then a partial refund for items that are cancelled, keeps the records consistent.
• Cancellations. An order cancelled before dispatch is a refund, not a void. Refund timing then depends on the acquirer and issuing bank, which matters for the customer service script.

Authentication is the other constant. Checkout.com recommends applying 3D Secure to all card payments in the region. A checkout that handles the 3D Secure step badly loses mada payments at the challenge, not at the issuer’s approval.

How do the card routes compare?

Card at checkout	Best route	What to configure	What to watch
mada only	Saudi acquirer, mada network	mada in the card form and in Apple Pay	No route abroad; needs the local merchant ID
mada co-badged with Visa or Mastercard	Saudi acquirer, mada network; international network as fallback	BIN table that flags mada, kept current	Wrong network choice changes approval and cost
Saudi credit card on Visa, Mastercard or Amex	Acquirer with the best results for that issuer	Normal card routing	3D Secure challenges and issuer limits
mada card inside Apple Pay	Same as the card underneath	Supported networks and country code that match the acquirer	A mismatched country code forces the wrong network

Where do STC Pay and SADAD fit?

Next to mada, not instead of it. STC Pay is a wallet confirmed with a one-time code sent to the shopper’s phone. Checkout.com’s documentation describes a two-step flow: request a payment context, which sends the code, then submit the payment with it within two minutes, after which the request is declined. It supports full, partial and multiple partial refunds. For shoppers who keep their balance in the app, it removes the card form and the 3D Secure challenge entirely.

SADAD is a different kind of rail. SAB describes it as the electronic bill payment service established by SAMA, run with local banks and billers, where a bill paid through a bank channel is updated centrally and immediately. It suits invoices, utilities and recurring bills more than a retail checkout. A merchant that bills customers, for example for services or instalments it manages itself, may find a place for it; an online store selling goods usually does not need it first.

Buy now, pay later is the third layer for higher baskets. Tabby and Tamara offer instalments with their own approval decision, so a BNPL decline should lead back to mada or a wallet rather than to a lost order.

Worked example: what does a local mada route add?

Example figures, for illustration only.

An online electronics retailer outside Saudi Arabia takes 10,000 Saudi card payments a month through one cross-border acquirer, which processes co-badged cards on Visa and Mastercard. Its BIN data shows the mix: 6,000 co-badged mada cards, 1,000 mada-only cards and 3,000 international credit cards.

Segment	Today (cross-border only)	With a Saudi acquirer for mada
Co-badged mada, 6,000	6,000 × 70% = 4,200	6,000 × 85% = 5,100
mada only, 1,000	Cannot be processed: 0	1,000 × 85% = 850
International credit, 3,000	3,000 × 75% = 2,250	Unchanged: 2,250
Approved payments	6,450	8,200

The rates are invented, but the shape is typical: the mada-only cards go from impossible to normal, and the co-badged cards move to a domestic route. The retailer also has to change its capture flow, because the local route does not allow partial captures, and its Apple Pay setup, because mada can now be enabled in the wallet.

What are the common mistakes with mada?

• Treating mada as an international debit card everywhere. It works abroad for co-badged cards, but mada-only cards and the domestic route both need a Saudi acquirer.
• A stale BIN list. New mada ranges routed as foreign cards decline or cost more without any error in the logs.
• Apple Pay set up for the wrong route. The supported networks and country code have to match where the payment is processed.
• Authorise now, capture later. mada does not support it. Capture at checkout and refund the difference.
• Voiding instead of refunding. A cancelled mada payment becomes a refund, so customer messaging and reconciliation should treat it that way.
• No second route. A single Saudi acquirer is a single point of failure for most of the market’s card volume; our article on single-PSP risk explains why.

How does Omno handle mada?

In Omno, card attributes are among the conditions routing and PSP eligibility rules can use, so mada cards can be sent only to providers that process the domestic scheme, with international cards routed by issuer. If a provider is unavailable or rejects the request, the payment cascades to the next provider in the rule until one accepts. The hosted checkout runs the 3D Secure step, saved cards are tokenized for repeat purchases where the provider supports it, final statuses arrive by webhook, and the routing-decision log shows which provider handled each payment and why. The smart routing and cascading page covers the rules.