mada, Apple Pay and STC Bank: paying online in Saudi Arabia

The payment methods you will meet at a Saudi checkout

Saudi shoppers pay electronically far more than in cash. The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) reported in April 2026 that electronic payments made up 85% of all retail payments in 2025, up from 79% in 2024, with 14.6 billion electronic transactions against 12.6 billion a year earlier. Online, that share runs through a short list of methods, and each one behaves differently when a voucher code or bank offer is attached.

mada is the national card network. SAMA owns it, launched it in 1990, and runs it for shop terminals, ATMs and e-commerce. Almost every Saudi current account comes with a mada debit card. Credit cards from Saudi banks run on Visa, Mastercard or American Express. Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay are wallets: they hold a card you already own, they are not a separate account. SADAD is SAMA's bill-payment system from 2004, which some stores offer as a way to pay an invoice from your banking app. Tabby and Tamara split a purchase into instalments, and cash on delivery is still offered by many stores for a fee.

Of the 60 stores in our facts table, read on their own pages on 9 November 2026, 38 name card payments, 28 name Apple Pay, 19 name mada by name, 31 take Tabby, 31 take Tamara and 28 offer cash on delivery. A store that does not name mada is not proof that mada fails there; it means the store did not say so, and we did not test it.

mada online: what to expect

A mada card pays online through 3D Secure. SAMA describes it as an extra check in which the store and your bank exchange data to confirm you are the cardholder; in practice your bank sends a one-time code or asks you to approve the payment in its app. If that step times out, the payment fails even though the card is fine.

Most large Saudi stores accept mada in writing. Amazon.sa lists Visa, Mastercard and mada debit cards beside its credit cards, Tabby, Tamara and gift cards, and charges cards when the order is placed. Golden Scent, Nice One, IKEA, Jarir, Level Shoes, Metro Brazil, Nahdi, Trendyol and Alsaif Gallery also name mada. Some do not. Go Sport's Saudi site says Mastercard and Visa only; Airalo's list has no mada; eXtra's payment page names Visa, Mastercard and Amex issued in Saudi Arabia, plus SADAD, card payment on delivery and instalments, but does not name mada. noon's help page lists Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Apple Pay in the app and noon Credits, without the word mada (not confirmed either way).

Outside Saudi stores, mada leans on its partner networks. According to the payment provider Checkout.com, mada cards are accepted abroad through partnerships with Visa and Mastercard, and a mada card processed outside the Kingdom behaves as an ordinary debit card. Fees for paying a foreign site in a foreign currency are set by your bank; check its fee schedule before you pay.

Apple Pay and the other wallets

SAMA lists adding a mada card to Apple Pay on an iPhone or Apple Watch, in shops or online, and to Samsung Pay. Both use face or fingerprint checks and tokenization: the wallet hands the store a stand-in number instead of your real card number. Apple's own list of Saudi issuers covers the big banks (Al Rajhi, SNB, Riyad Bank, SAB, anb, Albilad, Aljazira, Alinma, BSF, SAIB) plus stc pay, Tabby, Tamara, urpay and several other fintechs. D360 was not on it when we read it.

mada Pay is different. SAMA describes it as an Android wallet for tapping your mada card at shop terminals that support mada Atheer contactless payments, in Saudi Arabia and abroad. SAMA does not describe it as an online checkout method, and we could not confirm any Saudi store that offers it on a website. It still matters here, because bank offer terms often name it in their list of excluded wallets.

Where Apple Pay appears depends on the store and sometimes on the app. noon offers it in its app on supported devices. Sephora's FAQ, from a search preview only, lists Apple Pay for its UAE app and not for Saudi orders. iHerb's help page, again from a search preview, says Apple Pay works in Saudi Arabia but not with mada cards; if Apple Pay fails there, try a Visa or Mastercard in the wallet, or type the card in.

stc pay is now STC Bank

The stc pay wallet has become a bank. STC Bank, formerly Saudi Digital Payments Company, says it has turned stc pay from an e-wallet account into a digital bank account while keeping the same company registration. Its site says it was licensed by Council of Ministers decree 671 of 22 June 2021 and is supervised by SAMA. It issues digital and physical cards, including a mada card and Visa cards, and says they work with Apple Pay and mada Pay.

Checkouts have not all caught up with the name. Golden Scent still lists "stc pay", Nice One lists "STC Bank", and Apple's list of Saudi issuers still says "stc pay". In our table only 6 of 60 stores name it at all: Golden Scent, Nice One, Arabian Oud and Metro Brazil on their own pages, and Al Dawaa and HungerStation in search previews only. Where no stc pay button appears, an STC Bank card is still a mada or Visa card, so you can type its number like any other card.

STC Bank runs its own store offers, and their rules differ from offer to offer, which is the next section's point.

When a code or bank offer needs a specific method

A normal store voucher code rarely cares how you pay. A bank-card offer always does, because the bank funds part of the discount and the store has to recognise the card. In our bank table, read on 11 Saudi banks' pages on 9 November 2026, 33 of 69 live offers name wallets that do not qualify, and all 33 include Apple Pay or "any digital wallet". No bank page explains why. Tokenization hides the real card number from the store, which is a likely technical reason, but that is our reading, not a bank's statement.

Card type changes the discount too. Bank Albilad's noon offer for 7 to 12 November 2026 gives 30% with code ALBILAD30 on Tamkeen Plus and Travel Pass credit cards, capped at SAR 225, and 15% with ALBILAD15 on Gold, Platinum, Signature and Infinite debit cards and on prepaid cards, capped at SAR 75. Both need SAR 100 of items, not counting delivery. On a SAR 500 basket the credit card saves SAR 150, the debit card saves SAR 75, and paying through Apple Pay, noon pay or noon Credits saves nothing, because Albilad's terms exclude them.

The same bank can set opposite rules. STC Bank's Nice One offer (STCB15, 15% up to SAR 30) tells you to enter the STC Bank card details and excludes Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. Its Golden Scent offer (STCB, 10% up to SAR 50 per transaction) says it does apply to payments through mada Pay and Apple Pay. SAIB's iHerb code 30SAIB excludes Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and mada Pay. Read the line about wallets on each offer page; do not carry a rule over from another offer.

Other methods close the door entirely. SADAD, cash on delivery and pay-later plans are not bank cards, so a bank-card code cannot apply to them. Tamara's own Exclusive Deals live in its app, allow one deal per order and do not combine with store codes. Alsaif Gallery adds a return rule: discounted items paid with Tabby or Tamara cannot be returned or exchanged.

Questions shoppers ask