​Prison terms and public defamation for people convicted of writing bad cheques. In March 2012, Saudi Arabia has introduced a series of measures to tackle the problem of bounced cheques. The Cabinet of Ministers issued a series of measures, including prison terms and public defamation, for people convicted of writing bad cheques. Under the new measures, those accused of issuing bad cheques will be taken into custody and will be investigated by the Commission for Investigation and Prosecution (CIP) before being referred back to the relevant authority for a final ruling. The authorities will be able to resolve disputes within 30 days and penalties have been made more severe and will include prison terms and public defamation.  

By passing a tough legislation on bouncing checks, Saudi government is willing to reaffirm the importance of checks as methods of settling debts and payments. Along with this came SHAIKI, the Bouncing Checks Registry System launched Saudi Credit Bureau (SIMAH) in 2009, where Saudi Arabia has seen a 73 percent drop in the number of bounced checks since 2009, following the start of a government campaign aimed at consumers and businesses. The decline in the total value of bounced checks was even greater, falling to SR3.8 billion in 2012 from SR15bn in 2009, marking a decrease of 74.6 percent.  SIMAH also provided figures on how many personal and commercial checks bounced. From 2009 to 2012, the total number of personal bounced checks decreased by 63 percent. The total number of commercial bounced checks decreased by 67 percent within the same time frame. The total value of personal checks that bounced decreased by 75 percent from 2009 to 2012. The value of commercial bounced checks during the same period decreased by 72 percent.

SIMAH's report provided 35 reasons behind the phenomenon of bounced checks in Saudi Arabia. It found that 63 percent of bounced checks in Saudi Arabia were due to insufficient funds, the main reason cited. Recently, SAMA limited bouncing cheques reported to credit report to the insufficient funds. Since March 2010, the Saudi government passed tough legislation on bouncing checks to reaffirm the importance of checks as methods of settling debts and payments, according to another SIMAH report titled 'Checks in GCC Countries'. Under the Saudi law, the punishment for bounced checks can be a fine ranging between a SR100 to SR2000, or jail time ranging from fifteen days to six months, or both. Another drive to target the issue initiated by SIMAH included a campaign aimed at limiting problems by including bounced checks into the credit reports of companies.

• Providing bouncing cheques reports on monthly / quarterly and yearly bases.
• Providing consumers & corporate bouncing cheques.
• Analytical   reports of bouncing cheques for 2 / 3/ 5 years.

• Making sound financial decisions based on precise informaton.
• Contributing to the soundness of financal market and economy by reducing number and value of bouncing checkes.
• Buidling a database to register all bouncing checks to be acessed easily.
• Contributing to the soundness of financal market and economy by reducing number and value of bouncing checkes.
• Preserving consumers and commercials' rights.
• Enriching credit reporting systems by diversifying information.

• Total Number of Bouncing Cheque (2009-2019): 637,681
• Total Value of Bouncing Cheques (2009-2019): 170,187,792,192,258 SAR
• Total number of CI's: 6,306,4482

(Saudi Credit Bureau) SIMAH is the leading credit bureau in the MENA region, serving individual consumers, small businesses and large corporations with a full range of credit and financial and risk management products and services.

Established in 2002, and operating since 2004 SIMAH has issued more than 104 million credit reports since 2004 with data quality score of 99.4%. Serving over 17.2 Million customers and having over 63 Million CI's, SIMAH is the largest credit bureau in the MENA region offering industry-leading product and services like SIMAT (Business Solutions), SIMATI (Consumer Solutions) and Value-Added Services (VAS) to cater to business and consumers alike.

SIMAH offers integrated solutions in the domain of analytics and decisioning with its subsidiary QARAR making it the first bureau linked analytics company in the region. MOARIF (The Legal Identifier), SNTR (SIMAH National Trade Repository) and TASNIF (SIMAH Rating) are also managed and operated by SIMAH ensuring vertical and horizonal integration of services.

SIMAH head office is based in Riyadh and can be reached on www.simah.com