By Okaz/Saudi Gazette

RIYADH — There has been an accelerated pace in Saudi Arabia’s transformation into a digital economy. According to Okaz/Saudi Gazette monitoring, based on government reports, a total of 1,755 ATMs had gone out of service during the year 2021. About seven ATMs went out of service every working day during the last year.

This confirms the transformation of the Saudi economy into a digital economy at an accelerated pace by making full use of electronic services without the need to deal with cash as bank customers are increasingly dependent on technology.

It was evident in the checking that the number of ATMs that went out of service reached about 1,755 during the 250 official working days of 2021.

The number of ATMs operating at the end of last year decreased to 16,544, a fall in the number of operating machines by 9.59 percent while compared to 2020, when the number of ATMs accounted for 18,299.

According to the monitoring, Gulf International Bank canceled all the 12 ATMs owned by it, while First Abu Dhabi Bank added 6 new ATMs for the first time in 2021.

Al-Rajhi Bank tops in the number of operating ATMs that accounted for 4,891 while Saudi National Bank (Al-Ahli) came in the second place with 3,118 ATMs and Riyad Bank emerged third with 2,242 machines, and it was followed by Alinma Bank with 1,584 ATMs, Arab National Bank (1,142 ATMs), and SABB (1,089 ATMs). The rest of the banks have ATMs, whose number is less than 1,000 for each bank.