he event “Saudi Arabia’s Evolving Capital Markets: Focus on Repo & Securities Lending”, originally scheduled to take place in Riyadh on 27 April, has been reschedule for Wednesday 20 January 2027. The KSA’s Vision 2030 and the Future Investment Initiative continue to drive remarkable growth in the country’s financial markets and wider economy. Repo and securities lending are an integral part of creating a robust and liquid capital markets eco-system, where ICMA and ISLA have played an integral role in its development, working closely with local regulators, policy makers and firms on key legal, advocacy and regulatory reforms and developments, to further enhance liquidity and market diversification. On the 2nd of October, they published a new legal opinion that recognises the enforceability of close-out netting under regulations published by the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) and Capital Markets Authority (CMA) earlier this year. Authored by Riyadh-based firm STAT Law, the netting opinion covers the GMRA and GMSLA, to provide market participants and their compliance teams the assurance that repo and securities lending transactions documented under certain versions, will be enforceable under the laws of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 
This one-day event will look to bring together key local stakeholders. including regulators and the securities exchange, prominent regional financial institutions, and global market players, to provide an update on the growth of the SFT market in recent months, operational and infrastructure developments, Islamic repo and securities lending, as well as the Kingdom in the context of regional and global markets.