Saudi Arabia: The Saudi Credit Bureau (SIMAH) issued more than 116 million credit reports to the Saudi market since its establishment in 2004 until the end of December 2020, helping its members identify their customers’ credit behavior and bring more transparency to the Kingdom’s lending system.

Over the same period, the size of SIMAH’s database of consumers rose to around 18 million — individuals and companies. The number of credit scores it provided between 2018 and 2020 amounted to over 28 million.

SIMAH plays an important role in helping consumers, corporates, and small and medium-sized enterprises obtain financing.

Its credit data on individuals and corporate borrowers helps remove the uncertainty that has traditionally been associated with lending.

The new data comes as SIMAH launched its latest awareness campaign Amwalk-2. The financial literacy program is designed to help all segments of society achieve their financial goals, reduce defaults and enhance the culture of savings.

With Amwalk-2, SIMAH aims to shed light on issues related to financial and credit aspects of individual consumers, in an effort to raise the level of financial literacy and introduce consumers to the importance of financial planning.

It also aims to enhance the essential role of SIMAH, being the first licensed credit bureau in the Saudi market, in helping consumers assess their creditworthiness and guide them toward the most optimal use of credit cards.

Through Amwalk-2, SIMAH is actively contributing to the preservation of consumers’ rights and follows the eight credit principles: Neutrality, transparency, education, awareness, credit behavior, complaints, protection and confidentiality.

It seeks to stress the importance of a credit report in organizing and managing budgets, taking financing decisions and knowing financial obligations with credit donors.

“Amwalk-2 comes as an extension of Amwalk-1 that SIMAH launched in 2019, as one of the largest financial education programs. We believe in the importance of spreading financial culture and try to play a role in this aspect by highlighting consumers’ rights,” SIMAH CEO Swaied Alzahrani said in a statement.

“Financial education is progressively necessary. It’s turning into essential for the typical family making an attempt to determine the way to balance its budget, buy a home, fund the children’s education and ensure an income when the parents retire. Recent developments have created financial education more and more necessary for financial well-being.”