Beyond common PRACTICE

Burhan Almarifa is focused on maturing the legal sector, encouraging innovation, and enabling research and development in KSA through knowledge transfer and consultancy.

CHAIRMAN, SAUDI LAW CONFERENCE (SLC) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE & FOUNDER, BURHAN ALMARIFA

Paul Melotto

CEO & BOARD MEMBER, ALRAEDAH FINANCE

Priyan Attygalle

CEO, AMERICAN EXPRESS SAUDI ARABIA

Nejoud Al Mulaik

DIRECTOR, FINTECH SAUDI What is your strategy to create an innovative fintech hub and align all the stakeholders?

Technology has disrupted every sector, including the financial services industry. The Saudi fintech initiative is diversifying the sources through which we manage financial transactions, and devising a strategy to move toward a cashless society. The ecosystem in Saudi Arabia is rather unconnected, with many players navigating on their own. The Fintech Saudi program was launched in April 2018 to enhance, innovate, and connect the system and better understand the market and prevailing opportunities. We need to build infrastructure and see how to connect the dots between start-ups, investors, and traditional financial players. This will help diversify the economy and develop a better ecosystem for entrepreneurs. namics and consumer behavior are changing. This demands a diversity of new services on various platforms. We understand that STC Pay, Halalah, and other fintechs will help customers manage their transactions and foster diversification. Initiatives such as the central bank’s sandbox initiative and the fintech initiative are involved in navigating the ecosystem to better create a pipeline in the market. Then there is the Capital Market Authority’s Fintech Lab initiative, which is geared at regulating its services into arrangement, custody and stocks, bonds, and crowd funding. We are considering supportive and responsible fintechs and endorsing safe environments with a view to better understand what regulators need to introduce. The sandbox and Fintech Lab are the “test bed” where fintechs can enter for 12 to 18 months before graduating. We are also using these testing environments to regulate services in the market for new fintechs to navigate the market without having to go through the full testing cycle for the same service. ✖

How was DCI established, and what payment solutions have you developed?

DCI started in 2015, when we were working with the Central Bank of Jordan on various payment initiatives. At the time, DCI was attending the Digital Transformation Committee meetings after being invited by the Central Bank of Jordan. We attended workshops with the WTO, the Central Bank of Jordan, representatives of the German government, and other entities. The main focus was financial inclusion for Jordan, including helping the refugees in Jordan with a low-cost remittance solution. That is when DCI was established. Thereafter we decided to create our own platform because financial inclusion was not our type of software. We did not want to depend on someone else for the technology because then we lose our agility.

How did DCI enter the Saudi market?

DCI was formed to be the vehicle to sell digital solutions in Saudi Arabia. DCI started its activities in the Saudi market in partnership with the Alsubeaei family, the major shareholders of Albilad Bank, amongst many other businesses and banks outside the Kingdom. As bankers, they knew the challenges facing the banking industry and were convinced that digital money was the future. Thus, the partnership made sense, and we transferred our technology to Saudi Arabia and nationalized it. It was truly the biggest catalyst of our success. We received two licenses from the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) with the cooperation of our partner, the Arab National Bank.

What is your experience and perspective on SAMA’s more open and evolving approach to licensing of financial players here?

SAMA is evolving, though it is strict in the anti-money laundering (AML) and know your customer (KYC) areas, and we understand why. SAMA has a tough mission because it wants to promote agility and digitization, but at the same time does not want to compromise on the AML and KYC rules. Digital solutions are vulnerable to hacking, and SAMA wants to make sure those solutions provided to the market are low risk to protect consumers and the market. If we look at all these elements and considerations, we can see SAMA is doing a great job. It is truly pushing for a digital market.

How does DCI plan to grow its business in the coming years?

DCI is currently introducing a specialized marketplace just for e-commerce promotions for its regular clients. We are signing with major merchants and retailers, who will use our digital promotion tools, and will report back to them on the demography of their users and where they saw their advertising. Ours is a completely cashless system from end to end.

If we had not addressed all the different stakeholders in the cash system, we would not have succeeded. This is why through its platform DCI is addressing merchants, retailers, SAMA, banks, and consumers. We want to show the market that one can build many offerings on our platform, for example, a specialized marketplace, digital promotions, or connections with Uber or other third parties. Retailers have to react to e-commerce, as do banks. Banks will not disappear, though they must address the fintech rush. ✖