Zand is one of the first digital-only banks to be licensed in the UAE. Headquartered in Dubai, the company is chaired by Mohamed Alabbar, the founder and chairman of Emaar Properties, the country’s largest property developer. The bank intends to launch services for retail and corporate customers during the first quarter of 2022.
Olivier Crespin, Zand’s CEO and co-founder who previously held roles at CIMB, DBS and Citigroup, spoke to The Banker about the challenger’s focus on supply chain finance, leveraging data to offer targeted products and launching a new bank in a crowded market.
Q: Zand was first announced in April 2021. How close are you to launching services?
A: From an operational and technical point of view, we are ready for launch. We’re currently working through the final set of administrative tasks and are on track to go live before the end of the first quarter. Our plan is to launch services for corporate customers ahead of our retail offering.
On the corporate side, we already have a very healthy pipeline of corporate customers and loans for the next nine months. On the retail side, there’s a significant number of people — tens of thousands — who’ve registered their interest in opening an account with us.
Q: Has Zand been awarded a new licence by the central bank, or are you using an existing one?
A: The first step in the process of gaining a banking licence was to be able to demonstrate to the Central Bank of the UAE that we were able to run a bank responsibly and efficiently, which we have done via a long review process that ensured we had the right policies and processes in place.
Once we gained the necessary approvals, the second step was to acquire an existing bank and receive the necessary approvals. Last year, we acquired Dubai Bank — which has been dormant for 10 years — from Emirates NBD, and we are using its legal structure.
Q: What specific segment are you targeting in the corporate realm?
A: Our key focus is supply chain financing, or as we call it, ‘ecosystem-linked financing’, where we can help provide financing products to companies because we have a deep understanding of the wider ecosystem in which they operate. Within this, there are two main categories of customers we’re planning to reach: larger anchor clients, and their small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) suppliers.
Supporting the UAE’s SME sector is a key priority for the government, and it’s an area we feel we can make a real difference. One of the largest problems facing SMEs is access to financing. We believe that with the data infrastructure that we’ve built, we’ll be able to work with SMEs to smartly assess risk and find the perfect product and loan rate for their needs.
Q: Are you targeting specific market segments with your retail product?
A: Our target is simply people who are ready to go digital. We can offer an account to pretty much anyone who wants one, and we’ll be offering a full range of services including cards, loans, remittances and personal financial management products. All of these services will be served by a relationship centre that can support customers via chat or phone. It’s very important to combine digital services with the human touch.
Q: Despite recent consolidation, the UAE still has more than 50 licensed banks. How do you intend to compete?
A: We believe that in order to properly support the UAE’s digital agenda, you need to have a native digital bank — a bank that is built as a platform, that can properly interface with the various digital ecosystems that are emerging in the fields of e-commerce and so on. We see Zand as a platform with a banking licence that can speak the same language as these new digital players.
But it’s not just the digital natives that are interested in connecting with us. Especially since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, traditional retailers are increasingly having to transform themselves into digital players and understand how this world works.
