Faisal Al Haroun is the Group SVP and the Managing Director of Tap Payments in Kuwait. Faisal comes with over 14 years of experience in the financial industry, mainly within the investment sector. He was also actively involved in the launch of multiple tech start-ups in the region.
Please tell us a bit about what is Tap Payments.
Tap Payments is a paytech company serving businesses across Middle East & North Africa (MENA). We aim to contribute toward having a cashless society by bridging the gaps within the fragmented payment landscape across the region. There are many payment methods available in this region and we are trying to find a common ground to enable all those payment methods in an effortless way for all types of businesses.
What makes Tap unique from other digital payment service providers?
A lot of factors make Tap unique. As mentioned, we are a paytech company that helps businesses sell across the region while offering all the payment methods their customers love and trust. We build powerful payment products that help with payment acceptance, billing, reconciliation, and more for businesses across the region. In a way, we provide an infrastructure that supports all business sizes and models and supports them in simplifying the payments arm of their business operations. Today, Tap is also one of the most regulated paytech companies in the region that allows you to securely accept all the popular local payment methods such as Visa, MasterCard, mada, Knet, Benefit, and more as well as the recently popularized payment methods such as digital wallets and Buy Now Pay Later.
What upcoming challenges do you foresee in the finance industry?
There are a lot of challenges in this industry as it keeps evolving. Fintech is still a relatively new industry in the region and the regulatory framework for the industry is still under work. But what excites us is that at Tap, we work alongside the regulators across the region to solve these challenges together and support the growth of innovative ideas within the region.
Lastly, what message do you have for our readers?
There are no longer barriers for anyone to open a business. Today, you can open a business in a few minutes and start accepting payments in a few minutes as well. So, whoever has an idea should take the plunge and you never know, this could be the new chapter of your career. I encourage everyone to try our services and we hope they like it as much as we do.
