The Saudi Company for Exchanging Digital Information (Tabadul), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), has launched "Wthaq", the first-of-its-kind digital platform in the Middle East, which permits beneficiaries to issue bank bonds and verify its validity with ease and reliability through linking them with the banks in Saudi Arabia. The platform is in line with the Saudi Vision 2030's digital transformation program. It aims to serve all types of bank guarantees and improve the efficiency of transactions to save time and effort, as well as to prevent fraud through verification. Wthaq will automate all procedures for issuing and verifying bank guarantees online while unifying the standards for issuing the guarantees. It further seeks to control procedures and provide statistical data and business intelligence to the concerned authorities, which will contribute to raising the level of satisfaction of all parties involved in the life cycle of the guarantee. In addition, the platform offers an integration mechanism by linking with the Saudi banking system in two phases. The first phase includes verifying bank guarantees, while the second stage is issuing and managing bank guarantees. Among the services offered by Wthaq are verification, issuance, release, amendment, and confiscation of bank guarantees, all of which will contribute in achieving the desired goals of unifying the mechanism and automation process. The guarantee verification service is currently linked with the Saudi British Bank and Banque Saudi Fransi and will be linked to other banks in the coming months. Commenting on the launch of the platform, Abdulaziz Al-Shamsi, CEO, Tabadul, said: "The launch of Wthaq will allow us to enter into the field of financial electronic services that will be unique in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, as it will address several issues related to bank guarantees electronically, without the need to visit or correspond with banks through traditional methods." Al-Shamsi stressed that the platform provides an integration mechanism by connecting with the bank's system of guarantees and represents an extension of the excellent electronic and digital services offered by Tabadul to customers. — SG
