VaultsPay, a Dubai-based fintech, and Wibmo, a PayU company that works with approximately 275 banks and fintechs globally, including approximately 30 in the Middle East and 70 across MENA, have collaborated to launch an innovative pre-paid card platform aimed at accelerating financial inclusion in the Middle East.
The prepaid card, which aims to serve the region’s large population of unbanked people, will be launched across the GCC in stages and will go live in the third quarter of the year.
According to the Arab Monetary Fund, 79 percent of the MENA region’s young adults are unbanked, there is a 23 percent gender gap in access to financial services, and financial inclusion can benefit 72 percent of the poorest citizens.
While countries such as the UAE have implemented wage payment schemes, there is still an opportunity to channel unskilled and semi-skilled workers – estimated at over 2.2 million – or about 52 percent of the workforce, according to a UNSDG report – for online transactions via innovative fintech solutions.
Through the partnership, VaultsPay will leverage Wibmo’s pre-paid platform to build cutting-edge card issuance capabilities that is also feature-rich, configurable to specific requirements and secure. The platform’s SaaS modules are simple to integrate, significantly reducing the time to market.
Operating as a closed-loop platform, with use on the VaultsPay platform, the new pre-paid card will specifically help meet the ease of financial transactions of blue-collar workers, who may not have bank accounts, and have fewer resources for online transactions. It will also add to the convenience and cost-effective human resource management of corporates. They can make wage payments and other services for their employees by depositing salaries into pre-paid accounts. These cards can then be used by the employees to withdraw money, as well as at various shops and merchant places.
Dr. Mohammed Afifi, CEO of VaultsPay, said: “As a fast-growing fintech with a global footprint, we see a tremendous opportunity to drive financial inclusion in the MENA region, serving from the UAE, a hub for innovative fintech services. With millions of people who serve in unskilled jobs, their participation in seamless financial transactions and online engagement is limited. As the region pivots to digitalization and the move towards cashless transactions, our solution aims to drive economic inclusion for a large pool of unbanked and underbanked people. Together with Wibmo, our goal is to implement a transformational payment solution that is safe, secure, reliable, and easy to use, and makes a real and meaningful impact.”
Chitrajit Chakrabarti, head of the Middle East and Africa – Wibmo, said: “Our partnership with VaultsPay marks an important milestone for us as we grow our presence in the Middle East region, and even more importantly, deliver an impactful solution that is aligned with the UNSDGs and the vision of regional governments to drive digital transformation. We’ve always focused on innovative, cutting-edge payment solutions that will help our clients address some of the key challenges intrinsic to their business. Alongside VaultsPay, we will build a complete issuance ecosystem that will drive multi-institutional transaction processing and corporate payments serving both workers and corporates.”
Providing exceptional benefits such as rapid implementation in eight to twelve weeks, zero dependencies with own switch, hosted services and on-premises/cloud deployment, tokenization enabled, omnichannel configurable, and customizable reporting. Because there is no one-size-fits-all solution for pre-cards, the solution will be available in a number of program models, each with its own set of capabilities.
