Saudi Arabia Hires Crypto Chief, Signaling Warming to Digital Assets
The potential for growth in Saudi Arabia's fascination with cryptocurrencies is real. Former Accenture executive hired by Saudi Central Bank to head crypto and CBDC initiatives. Previously, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia treated cryptocurrency with more caution.
After bringing in a former managing director from Accenture to promote bitcoin adoption, Saudi Arabia is starting to see the promise of digital currency. According to Bloomberg, the Saudi Central Bank has recruited Mohsen AlZahrani, a former Managing Director at Accenture, to head the bank's cryptocurrency and cannabidiol (CBD) initiatives.
According to his LinkedIn profile, AlZahrani has been working at the bank since July. While at the central bank from March 2015 until October 2018, AlZahrani oversaw the innovation center's cryptocurrency and CBDC projects.
Several sources have told Bloomberg that Riyadh has recently shown an interest in digital assets and has begun talking to the industry's largest companies to gauge the United Arab Emirates policy toward cryptocurrency. Aber is a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) program that is part of the countries' coordinated efforts to develop digital assets.
Aber, a "joint digital currency and distributed ledger" experiment announced in 2019, is a digital currency trial issued jointly by two national central banks. The project was developed by the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE), the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA), and six commercial banks.
In a move that signals the Gulf state's future crypto ambitions, Saudi Arabia's banking regulator has appointed Mohsen AlZahrani to oversee the kingdom's virtual assets and central bank digital currency initiative. The source claims that Al Zahrani and Al Yousef work on a
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