WadzPay and Geidea team up to reimagine a cutting-edge payments experience for pilgrims

WadzPay and Geidea team up to reimagine a cutting-edge payments experience for pilgrims

Riyadh, KSA:Geidea, a leading fintech company in Saudi Arabia and WadzPay Middle East Technology (affiliate of WadzPay Worldwide) have forged a new strategic partnership to power the transformation of pilgrimage payments.

Geidea is utilizing the issuance of an e-money wallet, specifically for Hajj and Umrah, to be used in over one million point-of-sale (POS) terminals deployed across multiple merchants throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

WadzPay blockchain-based payment solutions allow Hajj and Umrah pilgrims to set up their own e-Money wallets on their mobile devices to be used for their expenses. Once the wallet is loaded, the pilgrim is ready to spend in Saudi Arabia with lower transaction fees and a user-friendly refund process.

According to Mastercard’s latest Global Destination Cities Index, Mecca attracted $20 billion in tourist dollars in 2018, second only to Dubai. The number of pilgrims is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, with the Kingdom having set a goal to host 30 million pilgrims by 2030, in line with Saudi Vision 2030.

This year, the hajj rituals were performed by at least one million pilgrims worldwide after two years of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

WadzPay partnered with Algorand, a high-performance, next-generation ISO 20022 and Sharia-compliant blockchain with