Zain Group has announced that Tamam Financing Company, the fintech subsidiary of its operation in Saudi Arabia, has been officially licensed by the Saudi Central Bank to provide micro-financing services to consumers across the kingdom.
This makes Tamam the first entity in the kingdom and the region to be licensed by a regulator to offer consumer micro-loans via a fully digital customer experience, through a mobile app in just five minutes.
The licensing follows the completion of an 18-month testing period within the central banks’s regulatory sandbox.
The testing process saw the app and the service vetted for functionality, security, and compatibility with customer user profiles in Saudi Arabia.
Established in 2019, Tamam aims to increase financial inclusion to support Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. The platform provides individuals requiring financing the opportunity to immediately avail a Shari’a-compliant consumer micro-finance.
The end to-end Shari’a approved process takes less than five minutes from downloading the app to receiving the financing amount based on the user credit profile.
Tamam aims to increase financial inclusion to support Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030
Bader Al-Kharafi, Zain vice-chairman and group CEO as well as Zain KSA vice-chairman and Tamam chairman said: “We are extremely proud of the teams at Zain Group, Zain KSA and Tamam in the successful delivery of this innovative Shari’a compliant service that provides consumer micro-finance in less than five minutes through a mobile app.
“Innovation is key to our ongoing developments and investing in viable digital services such as the fintech sector is a strategy we have launched a few years ago with Zain Cash and continue to implement across our markets as a critical component to our sustained evolution and success.”
He added: “Zain KSA’s evolution to becoming a digital lifestyle provider requires us to take bold moves in new digital areas, and we are pleased at how the Saudi Central Bank and the kingdom’s wider community are extremely receptive to such developments.
“We believe the thorough testing achieved during the eighteen months of trials has made our platform the most robust of its kind, and we look forward to increasing the number of consumers benefiting from micro-financing services.”
Bader Al-Kharafi, Zain vice-chairman and group CEO
Fintech services remain largely under-penetrated in the Middle East so the establishment of the first consumer micro-financing platform in Saudi Arabia represents a fantastic opportunity for growth, added Sultan Al Deghaither, Zain KSA CEO and Tamam vice-chairman and managing director.
“The licence granted to us by the Saudi Central Bank is a quantum leap for Tamam and strengthens its position as a leading provider of financial technology solutions locally as well as regionally.”
Zain Group’s activities in fintech started with the Zain Cash mobile money platform that has facilitated the disbursement of monetary support through eye scans to vulnerable individuals by the UNHCR in Iraq and Jordan.
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