Two national rails: mada and SARIE in Saudi Arabia, QRIS and BI-FAST in Indonesia
Saudi Arabia is 85% electronic, Indonesia has 49 million QRIS merchants. Compare the two sets of rails by the job they do, see what the new QRIS fee table does to a basket, and check which figures come from the central banks.
Public figures from SAMA and Bank Indonesia, not advice. The calculator uses Bank Indonesia’s fee table and your own amounts. Claims are tagged Verified, Reported or Not verified.
Two countries, one question
Saudi Arabia and Indonesia both moved most everyday payments onto national rails within a few years. The figures below come from the two central banks.
- 85%
of Saudi retail payments were electronic in 2025 (79% in 2024), per SAMA
- 2,982.6m
mada point-of-sale transactions in Q1 2026, SAR 189.7 billion in sales
- 49.4m
QRIS merchants in Q3 2026, with 70.6 million users, per Bank Indonesia
- 1,631m
BI-FAST retail transactions in Q3 2026, worth Rp4,049 trillion
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In 2025, 85% of retail payments in Saudi Arabia were electronic, up from 79% in 2024, according to SAMA. In Indonesia, Bank Indonesia reports 70.6 million QRIS users and 49.4 million QRIS merchants in the third quarter of 2026.
The two countries took different routes. SAMA reports Saudi digital payments mostly through mada cards, at the point of sale, online and at ATMs. Indonesia built around a QR standard, QRIS, which any licensed app can use at any merchant.
I find one question more useful than "which is better": what does each design make easy, and what does it leave to the market?
Four jobs, two sets of rails
Set side by side by job, the rails match in some places and only one country has an answer in others.
Quarters differ between the two columns. SAMA reports values for SARIE and does not give a transaction count in the report I read.
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The table compares the rails by the job they do. Each row says how solid the evidence is.
Saudi Arabia's instant payment service started in 2021 and BI-FAST in December 2021, so the two are close in age. I did not find a primary source for the Saudi limits, so the table leaves them out.
What accepting a payment costs
Since 1 October 2026, the QRIS merchant fee is zero on small payments in every merchant category. A calculator shows what that does to a basket.
QRIS merchant fee, before and after 1 October 2026
- Fee before 1 October 2026
- Rp 315 (0.7%)
- Fee from 1 October 2026
- Rp 0 (0.0%)
- Change per payment
- −Rp 315
- Change over 30 days
- −Rp 1,890,000
Rates from Bank Indonesia’s tables. I apply each rate to the whole amount, which is my reading of the table. Government and public-service payments are 0% and are left out.
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Bank Indonesia sets the merchant discount rate (MDR) for QRIS. Before 1 October 2026, small, medium and large businesses paid 0.7% from the first rupiah. Now they pay 0% up to Rp100,000 and 0.7% above it. Micro businesses pay 0% up to Rp500,000 and 0.3% above. Schools pay 0.6% and fuel stations 0.4% above Rp100,000.
The table does not say whether the rate applies to the whole amount or only to the part above the threshold. The calculator applies it to the whole amount, which is my reading, so a purchase just over Rp100,000 shows a step in the fee.
A merchant with small tickets now pays almost nothing. A merchant with large tickets sees no change. I did not find a published mada merchant fee, so this comparison has no Saudi side.
Cash is leaving, at different speeds
Both countries show cash giving way to digital payments. The measures and the quarters differ, so the bars are not a race.
Year-on-year change
- Saudi Arabia, Q1 2026
- Indonesia, Q3 2026
Different measures and different quarters: the Saudi bars come from a card-based consumption index, the Indonesian ones from transaction volumes. Read each group on its own.
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In the first quarter of 2026, SAMA's consumption index, built from mada card data, rose 6.8% year on year. E-commerce was up 41.9%, point-of-sale up 4.4% and cash withdrawals down 6.9%. In the third quarter of 2026, Bank Indonesia reported QRIS volume up 75.80%, BI-FAST up 31.78% and BI-RTGS volume up 1.31%.
Saudi Arabia starts from a high base, with 85% already electronic in 2025. A growth rate is easier to hold from a low base, so the two sets of figures should not be read as a ranking.
What is and is not verified
The figures come from SAMA and Bank Indonesia publications. A few details come only from media or from my own arithmetic, and the table tags each one.
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Verified here means I read the figure in a SAMA or Bank Indonesia publication. SAMA's English texts are translations, and the Arabic text prevails.
Not verified: the Saudi instant-payment limits, SADAD volumes, mada merchant fees, and the fee Indonesian banks charge for an ordinary BI-FAST transfer.
The average point-of-sale purchase of about SAR 64 is my own division of SAMA's Q1 2026 sales by the number of transactions. It is not a SAMA figure.
What to take from it
For a payments product, the useful comparison is what each rail makes portable. QRIS makes the merchant account portable across apps. mada makes the card portable across banks. They are different places to compete.
For anyone pricing acceptance, Indonesia's new fee table has a threshold at Rp100,000 that can change how merchants price and bundle. It is worth modelling before assuming a flat rate.
The numbers that matter most here are the ones I could not find, and the table above lists them.
Sources and notes
Public information, read as a payments person. Not legal, tax or financial advice. Figures are as published on the dates shown. The calculator uses Bank Indonesia's fee table and your own amounts.
- Electronic payments 85% of retail payments in 2025: SAMA news
- mada, SARIE and the consumption index, Q1 2026: SAMA Key Economic Developments Q1 2026
- QRIS users and merchants, BI-FAST and BI-RTGS, Q3 2026: Bank Indonesia Monetary Policy Report Q3 2026
- QRIS merchant fee from 1 October 2026: Bank Indonesia, MDR QRIS, citing press release 28/159/DKom of 17 August 2026
- QRIS launch, interoperability and the earlier fee table: Bank Indonesia, QRIS
- BI-FAST stage 2, limit and fee caps: Bank Indonesia press release, 21 December 2024
- Instant payments circular 42047169 and SADAD: SAMA rulebook, payment systems