Saudi Arabia has placed financial transfers to the United Arab Emirates under heightened regulatory scrutiny, a measure that has delayed or returned some payments, according to three people with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke to Reuters. The measures affect payments between two of the largest economies in the Gulf.

The Saudi central bank instructed key banks earlier this year to apply enhanced checks to settlements with the UAE, the sources said. Six businesspeople told Reuters that Saudi banks have delayed or returned transfers in several currencies without offering an official explanation. According to three bankers familiar with the process, some transfers now take weeks to clear, while others fail to go through altogether. Three businesspeople said their companies have begun routing payments through third countries to avoid the delays. Enhanced due diligence of this kind typically brings additional documentation requests and source-of-funds checks, steps that generally lengthen processing times, while routing through third countries usually adds cost and extra processing steps for the businesses involved.

The Saudi central bank said there are "no direct restrictions on specific countries," adding that banks apply controls based on internal risk assessments, including country and geographic risk, within a framework aligned with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards. The FATF, a Paris-based intergovernmental body, sets global anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorist-financing standards, though individual banks maintain their own country-risk ratings that shape how much scrutiny a given payment receives.

A UAE official said the country's economy ministry had not received reports from private-sector companies about unusual delays in transfers between the two countries. The official said Saudi Arabia and the UAE retain deep economic and commercial ties.

According to two of the sources, the additional scrutiny places the UAE among more than half a dozen jurisdictions that Saudi Arabia treats as high risk for financial crimes. The UAE was placed on the FATF's "grey list" of jurisdictions under increased monitoring in March 2022 and removed in 2024 after improving its anti-money-laundering regime. Grey-listing has historically led banks worldwide to apply stricter checks and, in some cases, to scale back correspondent relationships in listed countries.

A Saudi insider described the measures as a "subtle message" to Emirati leaders following months of tension. The two countries have disagreed over oil policy, geopolitical influence, and competition for foreign investment and talent, although authorities in both countries did not say what prompted the move. Saudi Arabia is OPEC's largest producer and has long been the dominant voice in the group, which coordinates output policy among its members.

Economic ties between the two nations remain extensive. Saudi Arabia is the UAE's largest trading partner in the Arab world, while the UAE was Saudi Arabia's fifth-largest export destination and fourth-largest import source in 2024, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Businesses told Reuters that payment problems began in the weeks after the UAE announced in April that it would leave OPEC. One investor said companies have been waiting weeks for payments, including some below 1 million dirhams ($272,257), compared with processing times of a few days previously. For companies moving money between the two countries, the signals to watch now include whether processing times return to the previous few-day norm, whether the UAE economy ministry begins receiving formal complaints, and whether either central bank publicly details the controls it applies to the corridor.