Banking

Commercial banking has undergone tremendous growth during the course of the country's development. There are now nine commercial banks, with branches all over the Kingdom. The rapid expansion of deposits has allowed the banking system to take on a leading role in marshalling Saudi financial resources to fund the expanding activities of the private sector. The Kingdom's financial and monetary policies have maintained stable domestic prices, and stable exchange rates for the national currency (riyal), with one U.S. dollar equaling SR 3.745 since the mid-1980s. As for the stock market, which has existed informally since 1954, the Capital Markets Law of June 2003 established the Saudi Arabian Stock Exchange (SASE) as a private sector entity. By then, market capitalization stood at over 127 billion U.S. dollars, confirming Saudi Arabia as the largest market in the region and one of the largest emerging markets in the world, although the number of companies listed remained comparatively low at 65.