Payments, Transformed.
Samer Soliman, CEO of Arab Financial Services, is focusing on a digital-first strategy, with the MSME community at its core.
As CEO of Arab Financial Services (AFS), what strategies have you adopted in driving the company’s digital payments across the Middle East and Africa markets?
In a digital-first landscape, AFS supports all players in the payments ecosystem to match customer needs. Our business spans traditional card processing to merchant acquiring to Fintech products and solutions. Our digital payments strategy centers upon meaningful innovation that drives payments transformation, efficiency, transparency, economic participation, financial inclusion, and sustained growth.
Bahrain’s well-structured regulatory framework and open and competitive environment push us to think outside the box, and invest in and test platforms before expanding to regional markets where we are powering digital transaction transformation. Ultimately, we are delivering success that will extend across the GCC, Middle East, and Africa.
What is AFS Go! and how does it support Bahrain’s micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs)?
When I joined AFS in early 2021, there was little focus on MSMEs, despite the segment’s urgent need for digital transformation. Our vision with AFS Go! is one of a digitally equipped MSME segment with dedicated financial products and services. AFS Go! is a platform we have created to address MSME needs across digital payroll and payments acceptance for online ‘card present’ (CP) and ‘card not present’ (CNP) environments. It is a bundle of tailored payments solutions that in its initial phase gives businesses access to their online customer base, supports acceptance of mobile money and digital payments, and banks unbanked employees.
Our end-to-end solution costeffectively digitizes payments and supports every aspect of the MSME value chain, including last mile logistics fulfillment.
Beyond AFS Go!, what services do you offer to the MSME community and the underbanked segment?
One convenient and crucial solution is Al Rateb, which banks unbanked workers, giving employers the tools to pay salaries digitally and offer an efficient, digital remittance capability. In addition, we partnered with stc Bahrain to roll out the fully integrated stc Tajer POS solution. The solution gives retail businesses and MSMEs the flexibility to process payments, print receipts, accept online orders, and manage point of sale application and e-wallets – all while lowering infrastructure investments and minimizing human error. More recently we also launched AFS Pay, an app that allows Android phones to act as smart POS terminals, specifically for the micro-SME segment.
What challenges does Fintech face in offering such new services?
The challenges for Fintechs include critical access to resources, investment, and operational and technical capability. This is where AFS comes in. AFS acts as a platform for Fintechs who can utilize our operational and payment capabilities to enable their success. AFS has historically pioneered payments evolution, pivoting from travelers checks to card processing, and now merchant acquiring and Fintech. We are always challenging traditional forms of payment and investing to deliver value to the Bahraini market, the community, and the region as a whole.
www.afs.com.bh