Article 1 of the Saudi Banking Control Law

This article is the key to understanding the whole law, because it sets the intended meaning of each basic term used in it, and no later provision is understood except in its light.

• Bank: any natural person (an individual) or legal person (a company or entity) who carries on any banking business in the Kingdom as a principal activity. What counts is that banking business is the principal activity, not the name the person bears.
• Banking business: receiving money as current or fixed deposits, opening current accounts and letters of credit, issuing letters of guarantee, paying and collecting checks, payment orders, drafts and other instruments of value, discounting bonds, bills of exchange and commercial paper, foreign exchange business, and other banking business. The list gives examples and is not exhaustive.
• National bank: a bank whose head office is in the Kingdom, together with its branches in it.
• Foreign bank: a bank whose head office is outside the Kingdom, and its branches inside it.
• The Agency: the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, the supervisory authority the law mentions in most of its articles.
• Invested capital: the capital a foreign bank allocates for the use of its branches in the Kingdom.

The importance of these definitions appears in Article 2, which prohibits anyone not licensed from carrying on any banking business as a principal activity, since the definition of "banking business" here is consulted to know the prohibited activity.