Innovation & Digital Transformation Award

Evaluation

90% automatic · 10% by the award committee

Minimum score to win

70 / 100

Measurement period

The full financial year 2025 (or the latest financial year completed before nominations open); growth is measured against financial year 2024

Who can apply

• A licensed financial institution or a public financial-sector body, or a digital initiative run by one of them
• The nominated solutions have been in live production for at least 12 months before the end of the measurement period
• No material regulatory sanction related to information security or data protection during the measurement period

Indicators and weights

1. Digital sales

   Share of new products or services sold, or applications completed, in the year through end-to-end digital channels without a branch visit

   20%
   Show points and evidenceHide

   Points

   • 65 – < 100 % 100
   • 40 – < 65 % 80
   • 20 – < 40 % 50
   • 0 – < 20 % 20

   Evidence

   Sales or applications by channel report from core systems

2. Straight-through processing

   Share of transactions in the main operations (payments, account opening, financing, claims or equivalents) completed automatically without manual intervention

   15%
   Show points and evidenceHide

   Points

   • 80 – < 100 % 100
   • 60 – < 80 % 80
   • 40 – < 60 % 50
   • 0 – < 40 % 20

   Evidence

   Operations systems report showing automatic and manual transactions

3. Fully digital processes

   Share of the processes in the entity’s approved process inventory (customer-facing and internal) that are fully digital with no paper documents

   15%
   Show points and evidenceHide

   Points

   • 85 – < 100 % 100
   • 65 – < 85 % 80
   • 40 – < 65 % 50
   • 0 – < 40 % 20

   Evidence

   Approved process inventory with the digitisation status of each process

4. Reduction in cost per transaction

   Percentage fall in average operating cost per transaction in 2025 versus 2024 in real terms, i.e. after removing the country’s official annual inflation rate from the 2025 cost (a negative value means the cost rose)

   15%
   Show points and evidenceHide

   Points

   • 15 – < 100 % 100
   • 5 – < 15 % 70
   • 0 – < 5 % 40
   • -100 – < 0 % 10

   Evidence

   Calculation certified by the finance function showing cost and transaction counts for both years

5. AI use cases in production

   Number of AI or advanced analytics use cases running in production during the year with a documented measured effect (pilots do not count)

   10%
   Show points and evidenceHide

   Points

   • ≥ 6 count 100
   • 3 – < 6 count 70
   • 1 – < 3 count 40
   • 0 – < 1 count 0

   Evidence

   List of use cases with go-live date and impact metric for each

6. Lead time for digital changes

   Median days from approval of a change request for digital channels or core systems to its release to production during the year (measures delivery agility independent of size, instead of counting launches, which can be inflated)

   10%
   Show points and evidenceHide

   Points

   • ≥ 90 days 15
   • 30 – < 90 days 45
   • 7 – < 30 days 75
   • 0 – < 7 days 100

   Evidence

   Report extracted from the change management system or development and deployment tools with approval and release dates

7. Open APIs for partners

   Number of APIs available to partners or fintechs through a documented developer portal at year end

   5%
   Show points and evidenceHide

   Points

   • ≥ 15 count 100
   • 5 – < 15 count 70
   • 1 – < 5 count 40
   • 0 – < 1 count 0

   Evidence

   Developer portal link or the list of APIs with their documentation

Scored by the award committee

1. Novelty and originality of the solution

   10%
   • First of its kind in the Arab region, with a measured, published effect on the card’s indicators100
   • First of its kind in the country, with a measured effect70
   • Adoption of a solution already in the market with documented improvements beyond copying40
   • A rollout similar to widespread solutions with no substantial improvement10

Each indicator gives 0 to 100 points; its share of the total is its weight. Ties are decided by the indicators listed first in the scorecard; payment or package never affects the score.

1. Done

   Nominations open

   26 October 2026 · 13:10

2. Upcoming

   Nominations close

   27 November 2026 · 01:10

3. Upcoming

   Judging starts

   27 November 2026 · 01:11

4. Upcoming

   Judging ends

   4 December 2026 · 13:00

5. Upcoming

   Results announced

   4 December 2026 · 13:10

Times are in Asia/Riyadh (UTC+03:00).