MyAhmed: building frictionless and socially-conscious Halal banking
Welcome to Shaper Impact Capital’s series of articles showcasing impact startups doing amazing things around the world. Here, we would be diving into MyAhmed, a UK-based company that strives to reduce the frictional and monetary costs of Halal financial services, starting with retail banking.
In conversation with: Jad Salha, Founder and CEO of MyAhmed
UNSDGs: #8: Decent Work & Economic Growth
Looking to fundraise: $4,500,000 (Seed)
The Problem: Through lockdown and beyond, Muslims around the world have suffered frictional and monetary costs of Halal financial services. A large percentage of Muslims-run businesses have been forced to exit, while the larger conglomerates have managed to ride the wave of financial adversity and uncertainty.
The Solution: MyAhmed allows Muslims to bank according to their faith. We seek to bring the underbanked into the fintech fold and to promote financial literacy, enabling everyday Muslims worldwide to bank at low to no monetary cost. We are cloud-native, grounded in UK regulation and have built our services around the most pressing needs of Muslims.
The Market: In terms of size, we are looking at a total of 1.9 billion Muslims worldwide. Out of those, World Bank and UNSECO data for 2018 shows that 25 Muslim majority countries have achieved an average literacy of above 90% which forms the basis of our target segments. Our key priority regions are largely cities within the top 25.
The Team: CEO & founder Jad Salha has nearly 20 years of experience in asset management, accounting, auditing, restructuring and M&A. His career spans the Middle East, US, UK and Asia with Goldman Sachs, Hermitage Capital, KPMG and PwC. In 2012, he co-founded an investment management company. The team was later absorbed into Pictet, a leading Swiss private bank. CTO Kareem Ghazal has over 15 years of experience in technology and business change management, including six years at JP Morgan Chase in Banking Regtech and Treasury Services Tech, six years at RBS and two years in Telecoms where he lead and launched Tesco Mobile for Business.
Recent Success: Both the Android and Apple apps are now live and available for download as of 18th September. In the short span of 2 weeks, we now have 1.2k accounts opened.
Recent Challenges: The world has struggled with uncertainty caused by the pandemic. Parts of our operations speed ahead while others face delays. On the funding front, larger startups get funded while small ones, like ourselves, face challenges.
Why we love MyAhmed: MyAhmed’s competitive edge lies in its community-centric brand, as it actively conducts outreach. Social consciousness is also part of its DNA, with MyAhmed’s registered charity ‘Khadija Teaches Money’ championing financial inclusion and literacy through education. Its focus on speed to profitability also sets it apart from other neobanks in the market.
Catch MyAhmed on: LinkedIn | Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram
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