THE BASELINE.
THE NUMBER
billion riyals of new home loans, in a month
In July, new residential mortgage loans for individuals dropped 8% from last year, reaching about SR5.9 billion. Lending for villas fell even more, down 10% to SR3.7 billion. Meanwhile, banks increased their investments in government treasury securities by SR3.2 billion, bringing their total holdings to SR670.98 billion. Now, government paper makes up over 71% of what banks are owed by the public sector. People still want to buy homes, but they are no longer the most attractive borrowers for banks.
THREE SIGNALS
Saudi consumer spending reached SAR 144.95 billion in July 2026, up 8% from SAR 134.51 billion in July 2025. Point-of-sale spending was SAR 62.85 billion, up 7%, across 1.096 billion transactions on 2.5 million terminals. E-commerce through Mada cards rose 26% to SAR 37.63 billion across 197.6 million transactions, while cash withdrawals from 14,400 ATMs fell 3% to SAR 44.47 billion. There are 70.12 million issued bank cards.
The change involves switching from one channel to another, which means that if you are running a business aimed at consumers you should shift your investments from cash handling to digital acceptance rather than considering both as part of growth.
Osamah Alfadda
Saudi banks made SAR 8.52 billion in profit before zakat and tax in July 2026, up 3% from SAR 8.24 billion in July 2025 but down from SAR 10.10 billion in June. Total assets reached SAR 5.187 trillion, up 7.30% year on year, deposits SAR 3.113 trillion, up 8.58%, and private sector credit SAR 3.266 trillion, up 5.64%. The data covers banks listed on the Saudi Exchange and foreign bank branches, from SAMA's monthly bulletin.
Banks are seeing deposits grow faster than loans, so margins are likely to be protected rather than increased. If you are selling to a bank, focus on cost-to-serve and skip the growth angle.
Mohammed Altuwaijri
Adobe, the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and HUMAIN signed a partnership valued at more than $4 billion, giving more than 27 million citizens and residents aged 13 and above free access to Adobe Firefly Standard and Express Premium for 12 months. The agreement covers a culturally-tailored image generation model, Arabic right-to-left support, and free access for eligible startups through CODE and The Garage from early 2027.
$4 billion worth of software given to 27 million people is really a distribution strategy, not a donation. Adobe is securing its user base before anyone else can shape what creative tools look like in Arabic.
Abdullah Alkherb
THE MOVE
Data residency has an expiry date
AWS will open its Saudi cloud region in December on $5.3 billion of investment, within total capital investment in the Kingdom exceeding $10.3 billion. The region carries three independent availability zones, built so government bodies and companies can store and process data locally under Saudi regulatory and security requirements. AWS cites an independent study putting the economic value of cloud adoption at up to $191 billion by 2033, and IDC's estimate of AI contributing about $130 billion to GDP (Al Eqtisadiah).
the $10.3 billion was the number that travelled and it is the least useful one in the announcement. Almost every figure attached to it is a projection, the $191 billion comes from a study, the $130 billion from a forecaster. The binding fact is December, and the three availability zones underneath it. For years the honest answer to "why is that workload still offshore?" has been data residency. In roughly twelve weeks, that answer expires.
whether the regulated sectors move first, and what local capacity does to Saudi cloud pricing. If you have been deferring a migration on residency grounds, the architecture work is a now problem rather than a December one.
FROM THE FIELD
On the same afternoon that LEAP announced over $15 billion in technology investment just a few kilometres away, ten Nomu companies hit their lowest prices since listing. Al Battal, for example, traded at SR9.20, which is 75% lower than earlier this year. Both events happened within the same hour. If you are guiding a board toward a listing this quarter, show them that table before you present the roadshow deck. The goal is not to discourage them, but to remind them that those who succeed after listing are the ones who understand both the risks and the opportunities.
