Mohamad Sawwaf Of Manzil On How They Are Helping To Promote Financial Inclusion
An Interview With Orlando Zayas
Educate, Evaluate, and tweak. It’s great that you’ve launched the solution but you need to have a feedback mechanism to constantly improve it.
Most of us take it for granted that we can open a bank or a credit card. But the truth is, according to the World Bank, close to one-third of adults — 1.7 billion — are still unbanked, and have no access to a transaction account. About half of unbanked people include women in poor households in rural areas or out of the workforce. What can be done and what is being done to promote more financial inclusion? Authority Magazine is starting a new series about Companies Helping To Promote Financial Inclusion. In this series we are talking to leaders of companies and organizations who are helping to promote financial inclusion.
As part of this series, I had the pleasure to interview Mohamad Sawwaf.
Mohamad Sawwaf is the Co-Founder & CEO of Manzil, a Canadian Islamic FinTech that manufactures and distributes Halal (permissible) financial solutions. He holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management as well as a second Masters focused on Corporate Governance from the Henley Business School (UK) and is currently concluding his Doctorate in Islamic Finance.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to ‘get to know you’. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?
I grew up in community housing in Toronto’s west end in a moderately conservative family with many siblings. My parents instilled the values of goodness and social responsibility in us from a very early age. The desire to make an impact in society was how Manzil was born. In my teenage years, I played football and basketball a lot, and still do!
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
I particularly liked Elon Musk’s biography; everyone should read his story. I truly admire his work ethic and vision. As a CEO, he has that no-nonsense attitude and gets things done. He inspired me to focus on execution and I have been striving to do just that with Manzil.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?
Quoting my favorite, Elon Musk where he says “the motivation behind some of his companies is their significant impact on the world”. There is a large slice of Canadian society that is wholly underserved. There are virtually no Islamic financial products and services available to them. My partners and I began asking questions like “What do these financial structures look like?” and “Do they apply within the Canadian context?” Knowing that there’s a need and demand and that it could be done, I began working on making this a real thing to impact the many.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
To me, leadership is to “lead by example”. It is not just enough to think that people will follow you because you have a great idea or vision. You have to inspire them through your work ethic, execution, decision making ability, personal growth, IQ and EQ.
As a leader you also need to take full responsibility for your decisions and actions. You should be the first person to raise your hand when a decision you made did go accordingly, and should thank the full team when it does.
Leadership is all about vision and a sense of responsibility. When you take it upon yourself to initiate things and see them through. That’s how you gather a team and work to inspire them. It is also about managing challenges decisively throughout the journey.
I’m also all about youth and make it a point to continually train, mentor and inspire younger minds, budding entrepreneurs and students.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
We actually started the company in a funny way. After I laid out my vision to my team, our COO spent a weekend building a website and a waitlist. The first day it went up, we got over 50 interested applications, and then it snowballed from there.
Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Let’s start with a basic definition so that all of our readers are on the same page. What exactly is Financial Inclusion?
It is having access to and control over financials in line with one’s values and beliefs. It is also about democratizing the use of financial products and services across a population or a nation.
What does it mean to be “unbanked”?
As the world is getting increasingly connected and automated, not having at least one bank account leaves a person at a disadvantage. They are excluded from purchasing and benefiting from certain products and services. Multiply that by an entire demographic and you are losing out on contribution to growth, development and GDP/innovation.
For the benefit of our readers, can you explain some of the typical reasons why a person might be unbanked? Why can’t they just walk into the local bank and open an account? Why can’t they simply open an account online?
In Canada, a large group of the population are immigrants from many countries with different banking systems, many of which start off without any credit history, preventing them from opening an account, getting approved for a banking product, even renting a home, or even getting a mobile phone line.
Many individuals that come from developing nations are still used to earning and spending their income via cash instruments and never had the need or required the use of a bank account. There may also be education and literacy barriers preventing people from opening a bank account physically in a branch or via mobile banking. When you take a closer look at Canada, a developed country, we are still far behind when it comes to open banking and digital banking.
Can you tell our readers a bit about your work to promote Financial Inclusion? Without saying names, can you share a story about a person who was helped by your initiative?
At Manzil, I am working to revolutionize the Canadian Finance industry and serve new untapped markets. According to the requisites of Islamic Finance, lending with interest and usury is unethical, irresponsible and impermissible. As such, Muslim Canadians were consistently excluded from the lending conversation. The Muslim community in Canada was not just underserved, but rather not served at all.
I saw a pressing need in the market for homeownership and ethical alternative financing among communities of the Muslim faith and set out to create an entirely new money financing product. By launching Manzil, I hope to branch out into a subset of Finance and thus creating a new industry altogether. This firm will allow Canadians, Muslims or not, to fulfill their Canadian dream of owning their own home instead of otherwise renting, through this alternative product.
We had a family that was then renting and their landlord decided to sell their house so the family had 60 days to find a new home. The rental market had been increasing to such an extent that it made more sense to purchase and at least build equity over the long term, however they would only consider it if Islamic Financing was available to them. We were able to help them and this is what they had to say:
“We did it! Thank you all so much for the great experience together and for all the hard work and dedication each of you showed along the way. I’m overwhelmed, happy, excited, tired from moving, thankful, and a lot of other feelings that I find hard to describe. Because of all of you, for the first time ever, we are able to buy and live in our own house, in Canada, in a Halal way. What a win, and what an achievement for all of us. Again, THANK YOU!”
This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for businesses to promote financial inclusion?
By founding Manzil, I started a new chapter in the Canadian finance industry that will allow a large unserved slice of Canadian society to gain access to and benefit from alternative financing solutions, due to religious reasons, thereby democratizing access to financial products and services.
And by launching this new alternative financing product; a 25-year fixed and variable-rate Halal mortgage to Canada, we are addressing a major gap in the Total Addressable Market and fulfilling an unrequited slice of society, thereby facilitating financial inclusion. Manzil’s product gives an unserved community the chance to grow their wealth ethically and earn a halal return on their investments for the very first time in Canada. Whilst this demographic has previously been excluded from participating in financial transactions, it will now participate in the real estate and capital markets activity that will ensue, and thus spur economic growth, increase GDP, create jobs and lead to the overall prosperity of Canada’s economy at large.
Ok. Here is the main question of our discussion. You are an influential business leader. Can you please share your “5 Steps Businesses Should Take To Promote Financial Inclusion”. Kindly share a story or example for each.
- Assess your business to identify any existing gaps. This can come in multiple forms, it could be feedback from your employees or your user base. If you are finding that some users can’t access your product(s) for a particular reason, don’t just brush it off, but truly think about why?
- Reflect on how to provide a solution. Talk to your team and peers to come up with a solution that fulfills this gap.
- Bear in mind any obstacles/barriers. All plans are not flawless and it will come with its own challenges prior to execution. Make sure the plan and the team are agile and adaptable.
- Execute. This is what will make or break the new feature or product you are launching to promote financial inclusion and don’t get hung up on the details.
- Educate, Evaluate, and tweak. It’s great that you’ve launched the solution but you need to have a feedback mechanism to constantly improve it.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I feel very strongly about the refugee cause. It is such a tragedy to witness and very little is being done about it by governments on a global scale. As Chair of the Advisory Council of UNHCR Canada, my focus is to lead the council and build relationships with the private sector to increase refugee employment and financial resources required to assist in their settlement.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
Definitely Elon Musk. He is such an unorthodox visionary with unprecedented ambition.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Manzil | Halal Financing & Investment Solutions
Manzil (@getmanzil) • Instagram photos and videos
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
