Collaboration is key to grow faster, says ABHI CEO

KARACHI   -   CEO ABHI Omair Ansari has said fintech operator with innovative services could scale up their business through collaboration with financial institutions and banks, tapping up huge potential market of the target customers. Speaking as one of the panelists at the session held on Open Doors with Fintech organized by World Economic Forum in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he mentioned the expansion of ABHI business through the B2B model had been successful in Pakistan and UAE despite this partnership requires additional implementation of regulations. In the last four months, our customers increased to 250,000 because of the partnership with different organizations as there is no need to discover customers again that a fintech operator could do through a partnership with a telecom operator, he further added.   

CEO ABHI said remarked that the next decade is for collaboration among fintech operators, banks and financial institutions, which is different perspective what had been done in the past decades.

He mentioned that ABHI is a credit led fintech focusing on providing credit as a means to create mass adoption as opposed to forcing payments on individuals, adding that payments are not an issue but they need credit or cash to maintain their lifestyle

“Our focus across geographies and Pakistan specifically where we have been able to push adoption is being a credit first solution in that geography,” Ansari added. ABHI’s business model is that they provide salary advances to salaried workers at the end of the month to tide them over and then cut those advances from their next month’s salary. It is essentially a system that allows people to borrow from their own future earnings.   

As a part of the panel discussion, Muhammad Aurangzeb, Minister for Finance, emphasized on the collaboration between fintech and banking institutions through partnership and making investment.

He further mentioned that digital transformation within the businesses, mainly in banking sector increased their operations, the number of customers, and efficiency.

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