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Welcome to Episode 48 of the BIG5D Podcast. In this episode, I take a deep dive into embedded finance and banking as a service with Houssam Kayal, the chief revenue officer of FOO, a Dubai-based B2B SaaS company that helps corporates across categories launch financial products.
Kayal, a native of Lebanon, is an electrical engineer who is in charge of driving revenue for FOO. A significant portion of his career was spent in Saudi Arabia, where he led digital transformation projects at The Saudi Investment Bank, Saudi Telecom, and elsewhere.
Kayal is also an entrepreneur whose background includes the digital media startup Cook & Eat, a culinary content platform that merges professional and user-generated content about Lebanon’s famous cuisine.
“Food is an international language,” Kayal told us. “People want to learn about a culture through food.”
Our conversation with Kayal focused mainly on key current trends in fintech, including embedded finance and banking as a service. What are these solutions and how are they being deployed to help banks, telecoms, and other corporates? Not to mention consumers and SMEs.
And of course, we ended on AI, which Kayal says “is becoming a very key enabler of financial services.”
We hope you enjoy this highly informative conversation unpacking some of the key regional trends in fintech.
You can also catch this episode on your favorite podcast apps.
If you prefer to watch the full interview with Houssam on our YouTube channel, here it is.
Interview Excerpts
Here are a few edited excerpts from our in-depth interview with FOO Chief Revenue Officer Houssam Kayal.
What is embedded finance and who is deploying it?
Embedded finance is where entities like retailers. for example [supermarkest group] Carrefour, that are not in the business of financial service. They're not interested in creating a loan. But they want to enable an element of a financial transaction or service within the experience that they deliver. A very good example is Carrefour. They have enabled a closed-loop wallet on their platform. So whenever you buy something from the supermarket, and you want to return it, they'll refund the money back into the wallet in real-time. So in this case, you don't need to worry about the money going back to your credit card or debit card for two weeks, you can use that money instantly. So this is a good example of embedded finance.
Can you define banking-as-a-service and explain who it helps and how?
Banks realize that they have invested a lot in their assets. they have a core banking solution. They have a loan management solution. They have card processing, they can issue credit cards and debit cards. Banking as a service is the banks realizing that they can monetize these assets.
What trends do you see as the most impactful in the near term in the regions you operate in?
Enabling the acceptance of payment with different kinds of technology, whether it's wallets, cards, digital currency, or digital assets. I think the biggest thing we're looking at and we're trying to invest in is how AI is becoming a very key enabler of financial services.
The BIG5D Podcast features in-depth conversations with the leaders who are building, investing in, or taking to market the digital products and services designed to make businesses more successful in Africa and the Middle East.
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