Saudi Arabia's central bank (SAMA) has appointed Mohsen AlZahrani to lead its cryptocurrency program as the oil-rich country aims to bring regulatory clarity to the crypto sector.
AlZahrani is a former Accenture managing director who became the central bank's virtual asset and digital currency (CBDC) leader in July, not his first time joining SAMA.
Previously, AlZahrani had worked at the central bank as the director of the innovation center leading all blockchain and CDBC projects for four years from March 2015 to October 2018.
Next, the Saudi central bank collaborated with the UAE central bank to work on a CBDC project dubbed Aber despite SAMA having previously warned against the trading of crypto assets due to being outside government oversight.
This is because, Saudi Arabia is one of the most popular countries in crypto trading among 3 million Saudi citizens as well as 14% of the population aged 18 to 60 years reported to have crypto currency or have traded in the last six months based on the survey.
In context, Saudi Arabia is working on crypto regulations involving collaboration with some of the biggest crypto companies in the world including Binance and other firms that see opportunities to explore the Saudi market.
Also explained, Saudi Arabia's plan is to make Riyadh the capital with the top place in the Gulf region to do business.
While in a separate report, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange company, has appointed former Brazilian Central Bank President and Minister Henrique Meirelles as a member of its advisory board.
As such, Binance reports that it will release more details about this initiative soon.
