14 October 2026
,
Riyadh

VERIFY Summit KSA 2026

Saudi Arabia's dedicated event on identity, fraud and trust in the AI era

Request InvitationPartner with us
Building the Trust Infrastructure for the AI Economy
Saudi Arabia's expansion of instant payments, national digital identity and sovereign AI has changed how the Kingdom moves money and proves who is moving it. The fraud economy has kept pace. Synthetic identities, deepfake impersonation and Arabic-language scam operations now defeat controls designed for a slower financial system, and the same attack that clears a bank's onboarding clears a marketplace's seller checks.

VERIFY Saudi Arabia convenes the leaders responsible for that response — across identity, authentication, fraud, financial crime, and trust — in banks, fintechs, telecoms and digital platforms. SAMA's Counter-Fraud Fundamental Requirements, in force since April 2026, extended the obligation beyond banks. The summit examines where verification gets rebuilt, how far defence can be coordinated across sectors that have never shared signal, and what happens when AI agents begin transacting on the customer's behalf. The Kingdom's digital economy depends on the answers.

Why VERIFY, why now
0 %
of Middle East financial phishing targets e-commerce
0 %
report a rise in deepfake social engineering since 2024
0 %
of Saudi and UAE employees could be deepfaked
0 %
of anti-fraud teams ready for AI-driven fraud
Who Will Be There
A cross-functional room of senior leaders responsible for identity, fraud and trust across Saudi Arabia's financial and digital economy.
ROLES

Heads of Identity & Authentication · Heads of Digital Identity · Heads of Fraud & Financial Crime · Heads of Trust & Safety · Heads of Payments Risk · Chief Risk Officers

ORGANISATION TYPES

Banks & Digital Banks · Payment Service Providers · Fintechs & E-Wallets · Telecoms & Mobile Operators · E-Commerce & Digital Commerce · Regulators & National Infrastructure

What Makes VERIFY Summit Unique
Built for the people deciding who and what can be trusted.
Built around the trust layer, not a single threat
Identity verification, authentication, fraud detection and AML were built as separate systems and increasingly operate as one problem. The same synthetic identity clears a bank's onboarding and a marketplace's seller checks; the same deepfake defeats a contact centre and a video KYC flow. VERIFY Summit convenes the people building that layer across banking, payments, telecoms and digital commerce, alongside the technology partners working with them.
Built around live operational pressure
The agenda is shaped by what teams are dealing with now — AI-generated scams, synthetic identity at scale, deepfake impersonation, mule networks, agent-initiated transactions, and the reimbursement and coordination questions that follow. Sessions focus on investigation realities, deployment sequencing, and where institutions are still working things out, rather than on forecasts of what the threat landscape might look like in three years.
AI-driven defence, grounded in deployment
Discussions centre on how institutions are deploying AI across detection, authentication, investigation and response — what is already working, where it is failing, and how defence models are evolving as both sides begin operating at machine speed. The emphasis stays on deployed capability and operational sequencing: what is running in production today, and what the next stage of the build actually requires.
Agenda

7:45

8:30

Registration & Networking Breakfast

    8:30

    8:35

    Opening Remarks

      8:35

      9:15

      The Trust Infrastructure Saudi Arabia Is Building: Who Owns Trust in an AI Economy?

      SAMA's Counter-Fraud Fundamental Requirements took force on 13 April 2026, extending obligations across the finance sector to payment systems and payment service providers. Sovereign AI programmes under HUMAIN, ALLaM and SDAIA are running alongside instant settlement on Sarie and a national identity system used across government and commerce. Three infrastructures built under different mandates increasingly converge on one question: who and what can be trusted. Nobody yet owns the answer.
      • Three national infrastructures were built under separate mandates. Where does accountability sit when trust depends on all three working together?
      • SAMA's framework extended obligations to the non-bank sector. What does the institution build beyond the baseline to earn customer trust?
      • Sovereign Arabic AI is a genuine national defensive asset. How does the bank turn that capability into deployed operational product?
      • Telecoms and digital commerce depend on infrastructure they do not govern. Who convenes the sectors when no single regulator covers them all?

      9:15

      9:30

      How We Solved…

      A practical case study on a real industry challenge, the approach taken, and results achieved.

        9:30

        10:10

        Identity Assurance Under AI Attack: Rebuilding What Everything Else Depends On

        Nafath authenticates residents across banking and government, with Absher and Tawakkalna operating as the Kingdom's day-to-day identity layer. When one stack anchors trust for an entire economy, defeating the assumption underneath it becomes the highest-value objective an attacker has. Document forgery, AI-constructed synthetic identity and credential abuse are now industrialised, and a large migrant workforce adds structural complexity to verification and recourse. Everything else in the system assumes this layer holds.
        • Nafath is trusted across banking, government and commerce. What does the bank do when the trust assumption itself is targeted?
        • Deepfake voice and video are increasingly used against remote onboarding. Where does the institution rebuild verification without breaking the customer journey?
        • The Kingdom's migrant workforce carries distinct identity and recourse exposure. How does the bank build differentiated controls without excluding legitimate customers?
        • Telecoms and platforms verify against the same national stack. Who raises the floor when the weakest verifier sets the standard?

        10:10

        10:15

        The Room Speaks: Morning Pulse

        A mid-morning audience pulse capturing how the room is recalibrating its position on the day's most contested operational questions.

          10:15

          10:45

          Networking Break

            10:45

            11:25

            The Origination Problem: Where Trust Breaks Before the Transaction Reaches the Bank

            Financial phishing in the Middle East is overwhelmingly concentrated on e-commerce — 85.8% of blocked financial phishing pages across the region in 2025, against 48.5% globally. The scam is built on a messaging app, dressed on a marketplace listing, and delivered over a telecom network long before any money moves. By the time the payment reaches the bank, trust has already failed somewhere it cannot see.
            • Adversarial Arabic AI produces native-quality scam content at scale. Where does the platform build language-aware detection matching the attacker's pace?
            • The telecom network carries the approach before the bank sees anything. How does the mobile operator intervene without becoming a censor?
            • Marketplace seller fraud and payment fraud share one synthetic identity. Where does the merchant's verification standard actually meet the bank's?
            • Mule recruitment happens on channels no enforcement order reaches. Who disrupts the pipeline when it sits outside every institutional perimeter?

            11:25

            11:40

            How We Solved…

            A practical case study on a real industry challenge, the approach taken, and results achieved.

              11:40

              12:10

              Prayer & Networking Break

                12:10

                12:50

                Know Your Agent: When Software Becomes the Customer

                AI agents that pay, transfer and transact on a customer's behalf are moving from demonstration to deployment, and Saudi Arabia is building sovereign AI capability that will intersect the financial system directly. Behavioural models profile how a human transacts; an agent transacts differently, faster, and on the instruction of someone who never touched the screen. Know-Your-Customer was designed for a person. What happens when the customer isn't the one transacting?
                • Behavioural models assume a human at the keyboard. What breaks in detection when an AI agent transacts at machine pace?
                • An agent paying an invoice never passes an authentication challenge. Where does verification move when the customer is never present?
                • A manipulated agent could transact at scale before anyone notices. Who holds the kill-switch, and how fast does it operate?
                • Agent identity is being defined now across banks and platforms. What standard does the bank adopt before the market fragments?

                12:50

                13:05

                How We Solved…

                A practical case study on a real industry challenge, the approach taken, and results achieved.

                  13:05

                  13:45

                  Collective Defence: The Signals Nobody Sees Alone

                  Fraud moves across Sarie, mada, telecom networks and platform marketplaces faster than any single institution can track it. SAMA's framework binds banks, payment providers and finance companies to a shared baseline, but the infrastructure for exchanging signal in real time remains unbuilt. Each institution holds a fragment of the same attack picture, and no mechanism assembles it. Collective defence is the obvious answer and the hardest one to build.
                  • Real-time signal sharing promises faster detection across the whole ecosystem. What actually blocks it today — commercial, legal, or technical barriers?
                  • Mule networks operate across institutions that do not share data. Where could coordinated disruption realistically begin between willing participants first?
                  • Telecoms and marketplaces see the attack before the bank does. How does signal move across sectors with no shared obligation?
                  • Victim reimbursement is rising up the international agenda. What reimbursement model would work in the Kingdom without distorting institutional incentives?

                  13:45

                  13:50

                  The Room Speaks: Closing Pulse

                  A final audience reflection measuring how perspectives shifted across the day's discussions.

                    13:50

                    13:55

                    Closing Remarks

                      13:55

                      14:40

                      VIP Networking Lunch

                        Contact Us
                        Whether attending as a delegate or exploring sponsorship, contact us to discover exciting opportunities at our upcoming events.
                        Request Invite
                        Partner
                        Speak
                        Request your invitation
                        Join senior decision-makers and industry peers for a focused programme of insights, discussion, and networking. Attendance is complimentary for qualified professionals, subject to approval.
                        Thank you! Your submission has been received!
                        Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
                        Partner with Us
                        Showcase your expertise, build new relationships, and engage directly with senior decision-makers. Explore sponsorship, speaking, branding, and business development opportunities tailored to your objectives.
                        Share your insights
                        Share your experience, case study, or perspective with an audience of senior professionals. We welcome submissions from practitioners, industry leaders, and subject-matter experts with relevant insights to contribute.
                        Thank you! Your submission has been received!
                        Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
                        © Copyright 2026-28
                        Terms of UsePrivacy Policy