- 7 months ago
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00:00Nukudi has grown from government-related services to the private sector.
00:04What would you say has driven that growth?
00:06Trust. I think this is the key word here.
00:09What Nukudi has built over years is the actual trust in its system, in its processes,
00:14in the people that run the platform.
00:17And for years, it has been stable, scalable, and reliable.
00:23We haven't failed before, and inshallah, we will never fail our partners.
00:27And I think what we've built over the years is something that we're now offering for the private sector.
00:33I mean, what we've built with the government from reliability and stability,
00:36we're now extending to the private sector as well.
00:42Welcome to Khaleesh Times.
00:44Today, we sit down with Taif Suleiman.
00:47Thank you so much for being with us here today.
00:48Thank you, Taala. Thank you for having me today.
00:50So for people who aren't aware or familiar with Nukudi, what does the company do?
00:55Well, Nukudi is a UAE-born payment platform.
01:00What I like to say is a complete ecosystem that connects people, government services,
01:06and businesses all together in a reputable, secure, and reliable payment service provider.
01:13In our attempt to provide the solutions that people are looking for in the UAE,
01:17we are trying to build a worthless and seamless, secure ecosystem that would really enable the vast majority of the people here in the UAE
01:28with the services that the financial services that they really need.
01:31You're licensed by the central bank.
01:33How does that help shape your role in the UAE's move toward digital and cashless payments?
01:38Sure. I mean, we have two licenses from the central bank of the UAE.
01:43The first one is retail payment service provider, and the second is stalled value facility.
01:48Retail payment service, it allows us to provide acquiring services and payment processing,
01:54which we're currently providing.
01:56For the stalled value facility, it's more or less about the wallet or the e-wallet that we provide,
02:01and we have been providing in the country for many years now.
02:07Can't be too specific because I think we started too early,
02:11but we've been just regulated in the last two, three years under retail payment service and sold value facility.
02:17We're working closely with the Department of Finance.
02:20We're working closely with the government at different levels to provide what we call a financial inclusion strategy
02:28to include more and more people, include more and more services,
02:32look at the pain points of the society, and try to address that in a best fashion.
02:37I mean, e-wallet, we all use it.
02:40I don't remember a time where I went out and had actual money or actual...
02:47So I think we all use it.
02:48It's like the future.
02:50So Nukudi is working on a lot of new projects.
02:54Can you tell us a bit more about the new services they're going to be providing?
02:59It's more about the strategy now.
03:01I mean, historically, we've been providing services to the government.
03:04Our entire ecosystem was tailored around the services we provide to the government.
03:09And to that extent, we've been very successful and reliable partner.
03:13But we looked at the ecosystem entirely, and we looked at the needs and what we are capable of providing,
03:25either from a knowledge point of view or from a demand point of view.
03:30And here at Nukudi, we do have the knowledge.
03:32We do have the expertise.
03:33We do have the system that has been built over years of resilience and determination to provide a one-stop shop, eventually.
03:45A one-stop shop, a turnkey solution that could help connecting dots together.
03:50So the strategy now is not just to be focused only and entirely on the government, which we have been solid in providing.
03:59But rather, we are looking at including more individuals now to the ecosystem through our wallet services and more businesses as well.
04:08And these three pillars are going to be the pillars of our strategy for the future.
04:14Now, looking at the services that we currently have and what we will be providing in the future,
04:19I think there will be a significant change of what Nukudi has been known for and what Nukudi will be in the very near future.
04:27As we speak today, we're just about to launch our acquiring services, our issuance, card issuance,
04:35in partnership with some reputable banks here in the UAE.
04:38We're also looking at the remittance services.
04:41We're going to provide more or less.
04:43So I don't want to use the word super app, but in fact, we are building something similar, but only for financial services.
04:50We're going to focus on what is meaningful for you as end user to have in your financial application.
04:58To that extent, we are going to provide insurance under the application.
05:03We're going to provide tokenization of different levels, investment of different levels.
05:07So this is the aspiration from an individual point of view.
05:10As for businesses, acquiring plus issuance are now going to be the two wings that will help most of the businesses,
05:17especially SME, soar using Nukudi easily and conveniently.
05:24With these services, they will be able to acquire credit card transactions easily and seamlessly.
05:35They will be able to use our wallet services for payment at different levels,
05:40and they will be able to also use the card for their management of their expenses or for cash out needs.
05:48All of this together would be a complete transformation, especially for SMEs,
05:55to have this kind of one-stop shop or turnkey solution that will help them emerge and evolve easily with Nukudi.
06:02Speaking of the different services that you will be providing in the future,
06:06what usually drives your decision to create a new service?
06:10Is it market needs? Is it customer wants? What is it?
06:15Well, obviously, we have three priorities here in the company.
06:20First is the customer pain point.
06:22We need to know what's the pain point of the customers, and then we start building our products accordingly.
06:27Secondly, there is always a market gap, and these market gaps we try to fulfill.
06:35So this is our second priority, and most importantly, and third priority is the national priorities here.
06:41There are national priorities that we look at since we are working closely with the government.
06:45We understand their requirements, what they're looking for, their strategy,
06:48and how we can align with that in the best and fastest way possible.
06:56Nukudi has grown from government-related services to the private sector.
07:00What would you say has driven that growth?
07:02Trust. I think this is the key word here.
07:06What Nukudi has built over years is the actual trust in its system, in its processes,
07:11in the people that run the platform.
07:15And for years, it has been stable, scalable, and reliable.
07:23We haven't failed before, and inshallah, we will never fail our partners.
07:29And I think what we've built over the years is something that we're now offering for the private sector.
07:34I mean, what we've built with the government from reliability and stability,
07:38we're now extending to the private sector as well.
07:41SMEs are a big part of the UAE economy.
07:44How would you say you're helping small and medium businesses with easier payment solutions?
07:50Let's start with the foundation we built.
07:52As I said before, that we built a foundation of reliability, stability, and scalability.
08:00All of this now has been encapsulated and offered to SMEs in a very affordable way.
08:09Whatever Nukudi has built over the years, this kind of gigantic platform that we built with its sophisticated solutions that we have now,
08:17has been offered to the SMEs in a very, very seamless and acceptable way.
08:24And not just that, we are actually customizing now our solutions to be, you know, tailored made to those SMEs, what they actually need.
08:33And we look at most of their pain points.
08:36For instance, they're looking for faster onboarding process.
08:40Today, the onboarding process of the SMEs is really, really difficult and lengthy.
08:45And this is something that we're stepping in now to solve, to make it faster, to make it even immediate if possible.
08:52Our target, if I don't want to overpromise, but it will be somewhere between minutes to hours to onboard an SME.
09:02This is something that we're working on currently, making sure that it's compliant 100% and with the central bank approval on our new onboarding processes.
09:13Additional to that, there will be more solutions that would be more relevant to the SMEs.
09:18For example, SoftPost, which is something that most of the SMEs are looking for, rather than having, you know, machines or hardwares that would be complicated in maintenance and complicated and costly, actually.
09:33We're now trying to develop something that is more relevant to them and much faster.
09:38The minute you're onboard, you can download an application, get your SoftPost and start receiving payments instantly.
09:45And to that, you can also link your wallet as an SME and through that wallet, you can receive your funds instantly.
09:54All of these are, you look at it, you think there are easy challenges to solve, but in fact, they are fundamental challenges and they could be the maker or breaker for an SME.
10:07And that is the area that we can excel in and help to solve for the SMEs and to help them grow and scale.
10:13As the country moves closer to being fully cashless, what opportunities do you see and what are problems that still need solving?
10:20So we identify different segments of users who still need to be included in the system today.
10:26And we know that there are many Fintech companies working on serving these segments, but nevertheless, there's still a room for improvement and many services to be offered to such segments, of which we're looking at the blue color.
10:44This is an underserved category.
10:46Youth is also an underserved segment of users and third is the visitors or tourists who come to their countries in millions and use cash intensively in this country.
11:01These three categories are underserved and Qudi is building different services.
11:05Of these services, we're looking at cross-border interoperability, tokenization of different assets, investment at different levels, insurance, remittance, cards for different sectors or different types of usages.
11:24And many other services are on the roadmap to be there within 2026 to 2028, inshallah.
11:30As for the challenges, what do you think are the challenges that still need solving?
11:35The biggest challenge, I think, is the educating for first-time digital users.
11:41This is a difficult step and requires not just only an authentic company to work on educating its own customers, but it has to be a nationwide strategy.
11:51And it is there, actually.
11:52We see the Department of Finance is quite active in this space, and we work with them on certain initiatives.
12:02Secondly, in my opinion, is, of course, the balance between innovation and regulation.
12:07So innovation is what keeps us moving, what keeps us, it's the energy, it's the fuel of every different company.
12:13Regulation just keeps your feet on the ground, making sure that whatever you do is 100% compliant and protects the customers, the customers' interests at every level.
12:28And that's something we have to appreciate, and we have to work closely with the regulators to ensure that they understand what we want to do.
12:36And from what we've seen from the Central Bank of UAE specifically, they are very cooperative, they are very supportive.
12:43And when there is an initiative, they give you the room to actually build something, and they watch you closely and make sure that they give you the guidance and support throughout the process until it matures and becomes viable for end users to consume.
13:00Let's talk about tech. How are you using AI today with preventing risk and fraud, compliance? How are you incorporating AI?
13:10Well, that's a very nice question. And to be honest, I think AI is much, much, much bigger than just fraud detection or compliance requirements, which we currently use.
13:23I mean, we are using tools now that depend on AI for facial recognition and ensuring that there is a match between documentation and the information that's provided by the end users.
13:35But our aspiration is beyond that, actually, is more on now on understanding the customer behavior, understanding how we can enable more on the fly, ensuring that you as a customer,
13:48we understand your needs, we understand your financial behavior, and we tailor the services that are fit perfectly to your exact needs by understanding also your gender, your age, your background, your ethnicity, everything there has to do with AI.
14:07So this is one part that can be heavily used from AI perspective when it comes even to marketing.
14:15Additionally, I think AI can be, you know, a cost-saving tool.
14:21As you know now, AI is being used actively for coding.
14:26So I think this is an area we can invest in also heavily to ensure that our cost when it comes to programming is reduced a bit.
14:34It's becoming too expensive lately.
14:37And so these are areas that we look at quite actively.
14:41And I think in the next three to three years, there will be a lot of change.
14:45I mean, for Nukudi, at least, we can see that there will be an investment in the three areas here when it comes to compliance and regulatory requirements,
14:54when it comes to cost-saving and when it comes to marketing.
14:58Payments have to be fast, easy and secure.
15:01How do you balance all three in such a regulated space?
15:05Designing security without making it feel like security.
15:10Okay.
15:10You have to build something smart, something that people are not annoyed by, but makes them feel comfortable, makes them feel confident that whatever I'm using is reliable.
15:24And I can trust this instrument or this tool in every way without making the process as it used to be before.
15:32Like if you go back a few years back, the fact that you want to do a one single transaction could take you to five or six or seven steps before you're able to do a successful transaction.
15:44And there is a lot of drop-offs in the process.
15:48Today, I think the objective here is to get to one or two steps to do a finance transaction.
15:54And it has to go smoothly and securely without a doubt that you are the person who has done this transaction.
16:02This is the challenge here.
16:03And this is the innovation that has been happening in the last few years.
16:08And this is something that Nkudi is adopting over time.
16:11What would you say innovation with purpose means to you?
16:14And how does that show up and how Nkudi works?
16:17I believe innovation is not about building a shiny product.
16:22It's more about answering questions.
16:25Would this solve a problem?
16:27Would this serve an economy?
16:29Would this make sense?
16:32Is this a safe product to introduce?
16:36I mean, these are the fundamental questions that we need to answer before we step into any product innovation.
16:43And without answering these questions, I think we will end up with many nice-to-haves, but nothing of them is of an actual need to the end user.
16:53If those questions are answered with yes, we go all in.
16:57If those questions are answered with no, we have to be very reluctant and hesitant about introducing just a shiny product for the sake of a trend, for example.
17:08And if we jump ahead five years, what does UAE's cashless future look like and where does Nkudi stand in that future?
17:15Five years from today, I believe UAE will be the most advanced digital economies in the world.
17:20People will be able to move money from across borders, across digital platforms, across different digital assets.
17:28I think this is the world we are getting into.
17:31And we as Nkudi, we hope to be the platform that powers all of this infrastructure.
17:37We see Nkudi becoming the financial digital hub for the UAE and beyond.
17:43This is, I think, what we're trying and we're aspiring to reach over the next few years.
17:47And we look forward to see where Nkudi will be in the next few years.
17:51Thank you so much for being with us here today.
17:53Thank you, Tara.
17:54I appreciate the opportunity for having me today.
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