AI Told Me NOT to Buy the Watch – Inside Saudi Arabia's Fintech.

I shop a lot at one retail. So I'm asking you a question here actually. Is AI coming in to recommend me to buy more? Because that's a revenue growth of advertisement coming into FinTech. So okay, this guy shops a lot at whatever retail. He buys a lot of watches for example. Now this gets this watch maker coming in and placing an ad in this fintech app to say you buy this now you can get it on 24 months interest free. Let me change the scenario by saying Nadim don't spend here. Remember that you will buy a watch at the end of the year. Save this. I like that. Okay. This is how we should AI should be a CSR. Yes. Okay. How this is how companies should develop their AI tools. Like for us in TAM, we are I like to use this word cooking something. Welcome everybody to another episode of Brew Bites with me Nadim Ibrahim. Today is merely about fintech and how fintech is evolving in Saudi and how that has formed and forged part of vision 2030.

Frankly speaking, today I'm joined by a guest who I would regard as an evang evangelist in this space. I've known him for quite some time. He's become a very dear friend of mine. He has made a lot of transformation throughout his journey and throughout his career in the fintech space. Very young, very fresh. And I'd like to welcome Musad bin Kh to the show. VP of marketing at Tam. Thank you Nadim. How are you today? All is well. Alhamdulillah.

Alhamdulillah. How are you? How is things? Not too bad. Alhamdulillah. Welcome. Yes. Amazing. Mah. You talk about innovation quite a lot. Yeah. you once told me a story about your grandfather on the radio. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to just talk about that a little bit because I find that quite insightful? how I compare it and how I look at it like my dad told me that my grandfather once he bought a radio out of his savings and he was like seeing this radio as a very important and value on this radio because it connects him to the world where can where everyone gathers and listen to his radio discussing the news and all of that. And from this story with technology links you with the world techn technology makes your life easier. Technology makes you smarter to be honest. I'm not afraid of technology where we can see like my grandfather when he bought this radio. It was my father. He told me seeing

this radio as more important than his sons because he's inviting everyone like I said sitting and discussing the news all around the world and knowing traveling through this radio around the world knowing their knowledge. My grandfather used to speak English. My father did. Both did not go to the school. But how they did that? because of the knowledge that they can get from educating themsel through technology. Bring it back to sort of fintech and where you are as well and your experience. experience is important and I think you mentioned earlier about user experience or customer experience you had mentioned you know there's this statistic that 64% of the of global consumers have actually have used fintech and that sort of highlights the importance around user experiences because you know a fintech app the experience on that is very different from walking into a traditional M how important of a role have you seen us

use experiences play when we think of fintech in Saudi because the traditional way of banking in Saudi used to still is sometimes right going into a traditional bank. Yes. Actually some of the traditional banks they started to learn from the new emerging market of fintech and to develop their digital channels. User experience is the most important element to be honest. If you have a good product but it was hard to reach to your product, you will not sell it. People will not love it. With all the competitions that we see in the market, user experience is the most advantage that the consumer can see and will prefer brand other than a brand because it's not about having this with a discounted price. It's given it to the customer how he wants it, how he needs it and that this product or this experience will suit him and will he will feel com he or she feel comfortable with that will stick and give you the advantage to move forward in your

fintech solution. We have a lot of fintech platforms. I prefer one than another. Why? because of the customer experience, speed, reliability and these kind of points in the user journey as well can make a difference and as I said customer the user experience and the user journey as is the most important element in the competition. designing the interface of an application can give a advantage more than the competitors. This I always urge the teams to work heavily and invest more in the user journey and you find the user experience is it's important to make user experience accessible to different demographics. Yes. How have you found in your experience where user experience is more important and less important? So what I mean by this is you know gen z's millennials you know baby boomers so like our parents okay and then maybe you know like the future customers do they see user

experience very different across those different demographics? No, because it will very simple. No, I like it. It will designing the thing is you need to think and keep thinking, you and your team and everyone, anyone in the street, even you are in the restaurant, just ask a question. What do you think about this? So next day in the morning you apply it in your customer journey or user journey here where you can came up with a product that can fit all generations and this is very important that I always tell to the to our team that if you educate one generation most probably the genz's okay they will educate the older generations. I like that analogy. Coming from bottom up instead top bottom. Okay. Because they will take the phone, they will ask their parents why you are wasting your time going to the bank. Just you can do it by this. True. Let me help you opening

an account here or there or do this transaction. Next day, next week, he will he his father or her mother will call them to help him with the transaction. But the third time they will do it themselves. They will start to do the transactions. They will get comfortable. It's about you designing the way that the user journey that can fits all generations. That's what's most important that we trust the technology. I cannot keep going to the bank for example. I will not have I don't have the time to do all my transaction in the bank. It would be frustrating for me back when I used to study in the US was telling my brother when I come back to so is it going to be easy to order online? I don't think we have online delivery on all of this or food or but when I came back with all these kind of application that I've seen all the opportunities it made my life easier it gives me more space to do more

here and there it is technology here is to serve us where we can see fintech keep developing to serve the consumer to give them their needs. I like that. Trust the technology. Exactly. Okay. For and Saudi is a very young population. Yeah. So there's an advantage there that they will understand fintech in some respects. M we speak about the parents and the older demographic for them to trust the technology is a big thing brings me on to my point around or question around everything or the transactions we do whether it's transferring money internationally buying something on your mobile device tap and go you know that's still a form of fintech right whether you're in a traditional bank or a new fintech okay But the whole safety around is my transactions secure, is my payment secure. How do you see this evolving over time? Because you foresee that there's an obligation fintech have

to have very stringent and strict security measures. Yeah. And you know how do you see that evolving to give confidence to other demographics that fintech is a safe and secure place to be? let me talk about Sama here the Saudi central bank. SAMA always with the regulation on security and protection protects the consumer and the company itself both sides from not getting robbed or attacked.. By doing so they develop a systems where they can update the regulations weekly basis in a monthly basis in a yearly basis. Each technology that comes each thing that each scenarios that they might that might occur they start to inform the companies to apply it immediately. When we see all of these protections and rules, cyber security, anti- fraud, AML, anti-moneyary that applied within the fintech ecosystem, it will protect me more. I will be safe more. Plus, that can be tracked. The transaction can be tracked. If you got cheated or robbed in this particular

website, we can track it. Okay, we can know that the source of this problem, we can resolve it. We can protect others. Why all of this got developed? Because the more you get advanced in your technology, more people's outside they want to be to beat you to get you their hands in your pocket to steal your money. All these kind of regulations that we can see by the Saudi central bank can protect the consumer will feel more safe to towards the fintech solutions in the market. And believe me Nadim, you will not see an application that is in the app store available to everyone before multiple checks in security and protection and the dur in seeing this kind of measurements. It's gives you feel of comfort that this trusted application I can work with, I can put my money with I don't need to know who's behind this application, who owns this application. Since it's regulated, I will do it. Yeah. I mean, I've seen this

myself and it's commendable how many checks are in place and how strict it is and secure and you know, from someone who comes from the outside into Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia has become part of my own family now for the past five years. Correct. And you know it's fascinating how much the process is in place. A very seamless process. Yes. But a process that's needed to ensure as you say safety, security, protection.

Protection. It's just great to have. Yes. Speaking about SAM, I mean like Saudi for me, I have a such a soft spot for Saudi. Always have that done. Yeah. And what I've seen such big transformation and fintech is one of those. And you know Saudi has been championed the space of fintech. When I see fintech compared to other markets in Europe there's a lot of advancements in a very short space of time in Saudi where you see some new fintex coming to the horizon. Yes. And what's commendable is that they go through that process that you just mentioned. Yes. And it's set to grow. You know the number of fintex in Saudi I read a stat recently is set to grow by like 45% annually which is amazing. Exactly. Now sama obviously play a role in that and there's a lot of initiatives in Saudi. Can you maybe sort of explain how those initiatives are helping the growth of fintech in Saudi?

Sure. Definitely. So the initiative again like I said of fentic and how it's related to vision 2030 is to put Saudi Arabia as a market leader in the fentric industry. Sama have created a sandbox. environment and create also opened authentic soc which is a company an academy let me call it that can help entrepreneurs and talents to get more into the fintech industry in the sandbox we have currently 30 company under testing envir environment that 30 okay nice 50 already operating in the market that's all of them they've gone in the same process where you can help get the help of the experts you can know learn more about your product and application your customer you start to test all scenarios with the future to you with your future consumers. All of this just to ensure to expedite the movement of the fintech where we sama don't want entrepreneurs and companies be afraid of getting into this market say so this is why they have created the sandbox environment to ensure that we will have risk restriction in you help you to get your application up already in the market nice to with the consumers 50 company operating in the so market it's a large number m now you have a variety of competitors you have the consumer have variety of choices that they are competing to reach the best again to get the best customer

experience to have a customer loyalty to generate more ideas and more. Back in the days, the traditional bank, you go there, you get a card, you get a loan, you have your account. If you don't have more than 200k in your account, you will sit outside for 15 30 minutes. Okay? Now it's different. Now you have the choice to choose as a consumer which bank you want to go, which application you want. starting from digital wallets up to invoicing application and this is opportunity where I talk about TAM which is a full native digital micro finance. company. you back in the days, you wouldn't get a your financing or your cash without signing hundreds of papers asking getting asked hundred of questions.. Plus they want to ensure that you are going to pay them. Even if they give you the money, they will again ask you your how are you going to pay us or not. Okay. With TAM, it's a fully digital native

solution. You will get your money after 24 hours of applying the applying your application. How this how tam came in the market because of the support of Saudi central bank.. how much tam helped in the market? This is the most important question. we have dispersed more than $500 million loan in the market. Imagine Nadim this number of cash in the market giving to individuals. What did they do? What did they do with it? help them, it support them, it close their needs all digitally without human interaction. Nice. Before fintech, we wouldn't have this. You wouldn't have had this, right? You'd have to go to a traditional bank and like you say, and if I want 3,000, 5,000, no one will give it to me. I will call you and you will be available. Look, like it's interesting you say that and the future customers. Yes. Okay. Of any fintech application they they're big adopters. Yes. But there's this growing trend and not specific to Saudi just okay. this is just looking like from a global lens perspective. M you see a trend with Gen Z's adopting fintech, but there's almost a third of them don't quite trust fintech in some respects. Okay. And that's a little bit concerning from a Gen Z perspective because they are big adopters of new technologies. Yeah. Yeah.

How should a fintech educate those future customers to minimize and enhance as you say trusted technology for those giving them what they need.. For example, for the young generation by understanding their behavior, you will move them, you will design a product that fits their need. As I said, that will move them towards you. And there's a very important thing to mention is a company that's run by old generation cannot deliver a product for younger generation.

You need to have a mix of both. You get the experience of the old management and the insight from the young generation. So having the product designed for them Yeah. will push them to come to you because you are serving their needs. and mainly the authentic products like there's an example of an investment application. Usually investment goes to a very high salary person. But they said one you can invest only one real with us daily invest one real is nothing I'll give five real I'll put them give them 10 real they pushed today's generation with low salary rates plus the students as well okay I've started to hear the students talking about it wasn't an investment for a students too early for them. But they designed a product where it fits their need and it reduce the stress of financial needs in future. Introduce the stress of financial needs to youngsters by one real later. Oh god. But that's no

that's I think that's 100% right like accessibility across all generations you know we we've been speaking about and I think more about giving them what they need all centers around user experience and we don't really talk about user experience enough and user experience is what is I guess the holy grail of any fintech application and judging by what you're saying the innovation has to be very important and you have to keep up with the trend of innovation keep developing keep searching for the best experience. So, let me ask you a question. You ready for this one? Okay. Now, what do you think will be the next wave of innovation in fintech? AI you know I had a note here of AI you know and I didn't want to use the word AI but when you say that for me AI in fintech kind of makes me nervous why it's because everything might become too personal to me then or already I have that well I don't really want my finances to become more personal to me whenever I access my finances. Like for example, this just say I shop a lot at one retail. So I'm asking you a question here actually is AI coming in to recommend me to buy more because that's a revenue growth of advertisement coming into fintech. So okay this guy shops a lot at whatever retail he buys a lot of watches for example now this gets this watch maker coming in I'm placing an ad in

this fintech app to say you buy this now you can get it on 24 months interest free let me change the scenario okay by saying nadem don't spend here remember that you will buy a watch at the end of the year save this I like that okay this is how We should AI should be a CSR. Yes. Okay. How this is how companies should develop their AI tools like for us in tam we are I like to use this word cooking something. Okay. With AI we can predict your behavior and we say this guy is a trusted person. We can give him we can finance him with a lower rate. This is how AI helps us. it's about like I'll be very honest before coming here I opened my AI generator talking with her discussing the topic and all the points and all of that. It helped me and I thanked her and that's it.. So it's about how we can see AI helping Fentinex to grow and for a better customer user experience.. And that can serve the customers. U so it's a tool. There's a risk of over reliance on AI. Yes. So again I'm not specifically I'm talking about an experience in Europe with one fintech. Yes. and I have this fintech and they have different sections in this fintech. Okay. So, you have your current account, you have your vault, they call them vaults. And within your

type of vaults, you can buy you can open any type of savings account. There's some cryptos there. There's some gold and whatever it is, you can invest in there and you can be locked in and it's like a bond. You're guaranteed some form of return. Then you've also got digital cards. You can open up as many digital cards as you want. Then you got this last bit which is offers. You go into offers and they've done exclusive deals with all the different retailers out there. Some very good ones as well from holiday bookings to just your high store retailers to even some, you know, CPG brands as well. But what they do is recently now is tailor the offer to your behavior. So if you travel a lot, you'll see a lot more travel, book a flight, etc. If you, know, buying things, it will do the same thing. If you are transacting of very high value, it will bring some other options in there for you and stuff. For

me, it creates a level of temptation. But why are they doing this? It has to be through a revenue stream, right? Yes. that you're able to capitalize on such a big base. Yes. And you just grow that revenue. Yes. But I like your theory around the fentic also has an extra layer of obligation. Yes. To say watch how you spend you know be careful you know maybe buy this at this point in time. we can say Nadim based on your behavior this is the best recommended card for you because you spent X monthly you'll get X rewards it's about how you design it and talking about promotion and coming from a marketing background it's about how you I don't see a problem promoting the product through AI digital channels whatever we can call it to the customer after getting out from this application I will follow him in X platform for me I'm sad I don't see it as a problem it's always this why I told tell my

friends it's always I keep it as a reminder for me I need this but I couldn't buy it because I thought it's very expensive but I'll come back to it whenever I can buy it again all these digital applications. It's like another world that you are living in of course by yourself alone designed for you. It's about you knowing what you want an ex platform there you have two option following or for you. I always increase my following so I can get great mix in the for you section or timeline sorry it's about you controlling but how mean how did I learned about this because this is my background and working it's about the people educating themselves as much as they can about the new the future the technologies so we they can survive and live with it and they the best out of it. Yeah. I mean it's a great utility to have. I think I would be lost. I think most of us would be lost without

a fintech application on our phone. Exactly. Because that speed of access to open an account or even close an account. It's so seamless. Right. Yes. When you have traditional banks, it can be very difficult to open an account. Yes. go through the but traditional banks are moving towards the fintech digital wallets and all of that and I see it a great advantage for both because they're learning from the younger generation the big traditional banks and this the younger companies the fantex and the startups getting the benefits from the traditional old experienced bank. Yeah. has benefits such an experience in financing and XY Z. Talking about financing. For example, TAM when it started it was the first financing digital financing company. I was looking to the numbers at the beginning.. And I was telling my boss, this is nothing.

How did you believe that this company will grow to reach $500 million dispersed loans is because of the traditional banks. But when we saw them that they can lend up to billions and we believed in sorry he believed in Tam that can reach such a level. Okay. Interesting. I mean yeah I mean fintech is changing a lot and we spoke a lot about technology. We spoke about a lot of the evolution. AI is always like a hot topic. Yes, it can be a controversial topic however you look at it cuz you talk about ethics, you talk about but has endless opportunity that you know I love I would encourage people to adopt AI as much as they can because it's such a great experience. It helps speed with time and a lot it has a lot of benefits. Correct. But you know the biggest adopters of AI or biggest users of AI is Gen Z's. Yes. Okay. And Jenz's are building on AI and you speak to I speak to my nephew and he

knows much more than me. I grew up when Facebook had launched and my nephew doesn't understand why I liked Facebook. Like really you were on Facebook? Seriously? What are you doing there? And I'm thinking to him like what are you doing on Tik Tok for example, right? Although I'm across everywhere. what are what is so interesting about Saudi is youthquake. Yes. And youthquake is where the youth are disrupting what should be disrupting in a way of redefining different elements for example fashion or they're redefining what means for technologies in banking or in travel and sly being a very young population this youthquake is redefining vision 2030 it's helping define vision 2030 right those who are listening from whether they're from Saudi, whether they're from parts of the GCC, like what advice would you give them for someone who's thinking I want to get into fintech or I want to get into something that is in development that

may apply to fintech because for that generation, the future generation, their approach is a little bit different in some ways and I think it helps to give a real inside view of what is expected to be able to make it infantic. M what I can give them and what I can say nowadays everything is evolving towards technology learn more about technology in school they don't teach us what's SDK file is what's APIs are what's this and that so you learn about it more because when you come nowadays in the work most probably the technology team has all the dependency in the company. If they whatever your background is, your courses that you are taking, learn more about technology. Work very hard when you once you get the chance. develop the habit of learning. Don't quit very fast. Be persistent. Think about it about in the gym where all subscribers on all attenders in the gym some they stay for too long some they leave some they keep going the same

time doing the same after 2 three years we'll see he will see a difference this guy wouldn't see difference because they didn't keep going and just as the last thing that I can say be like a sponge observe every knowledge, learn. So when it comes the time, you want the knowledge, the experience, we squeeze you, things will get come out and learn more about technology. Be open to it and it's still a growing space for someone to thinking is f is fintech or even finance.

I know finance. Yes. Right. It's not as frag is it as fragmented? No, a CFO cannot work. If the if there is a technical problem in the backend system, the numbers will get you will receive a wrong numbers. But it's about him as a CFO understanding the knowledge of the technology when the technology come the team comes back to him and he said we can solve it in three hours because we had XY Z.. If he doesn't understand, he will feel frustrated. He wouldn't move with the new generation and future towards where it will be. Of course, Growing up, what was your go-to game as a child? Was there anything specific that the most game that I like or I love it was a diff jam fight in New York. PlayStation 2 where you can create your character and you start fighting midnight clubs and you do these fights here and there. you collect points and money and you start to buy more gears. It was challenging and of course

GTA. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, you know, and you start at PS2. Yeah. PS2, PS1, but the last generation of PS was PS2 that I played with. to be honest, it's not me not having the time, but mainly requires you to stay and play. Yeah. And you keep playing and nowadays like I'm focusing work. Yeah, of course. Of course. But my go-to game, man, I said this a lot, is Spectrum. Do you know the Spectrum, which was a tape cassette? Yes. Yeah. And then from the Spectrum, I moved to what was called an Amigga or a Commodore.. And that's where you had the we called it a floppy disc. It was like 1.44 in wide.. And you put it in. big black thing. And it would take maybe like 5 minutes to load to run. Yeah. And then it would be so slow. You would finish one level and then it would take then you have to remove it, eject it, and pick another one again. Yeah. And the worst thing is when there's a power cut, then you lose everything and you have to load everything again. You have to restart again, you know. That was my go-to game. Did you ever have like a piece of technology that you recall growing up that was like very close to your heart? It was the Game Boy and before that it's like the small egg where you grow the dinosaur with it. I forgot what they call it.

Tamagotchi. Yeah. Tamagotchi. Yes. My sister loved the Tamagotchi. And when my mom like get tired of me, she start to hide it and she start to crying. Where's my baby? And she said you are a man and all of that. But it's all these games what I what gives me is the challenge. It's where you start from level one up to level 100 for example. It's about me coming back from school every day trying to play more and more to reach the top level. It was I like the games where you challenge yourself more than the adventure games where you can just play around more than challenging games that gives you a goal to reach. These kind of games that keeps me playing to be honest. I played Call of Duty for quite some time but it's not for me anymore. Not for you anymore. I know you're doing far bigger things now. I'm not sure. Okay. even said like we're coming to the end, okay, of the show today. one segment that I love, the next segment is called Espresso Encounters. Okay. I don't want to make you nervous, habibi, but maybe you might want to be a little bit nervous. Okay. Okay. I have two cards here. Yes. Okay. Beneath each card, there's a different outcome. It's like the matrix here. Okay. One card will have a question that's been written by a previous guest..

The other card is a question that has been generated by chat GPT. You spoke a lot about AI. So are you nervous about AI? No. Maybe depend. It depends on the question. You're saying this will be nervous. Yeah. So I'm going to put these here and I'll allow you to choose one of these cards. M and we'll see what it I'll go with the right. Okay. Allah. Let's see what is it. Hold it up. okay. You have a question then from a guest. What's your view on robots? I've seen robot in 200 13. Okay. Behind Cleveland Clinic. Okay. building sorry underneath the building it was in the storage where robots mo move the medicine and all of that. It was no human interaction. It's like seeing something in the zoo alive be a fully. He comes and he takes this and Then you see it across the alleys and all that. Then I realized that how much the robots can help us in life that one day I will have one. Okay. Would you have a robot as a pet? Would you or would you have robot? As a butler. As a butler. Yeah. Hello. Like that. That I forgot what's the I know what you mean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But my view is it's the future. U everyone is trying to develop its own robot..

In the sector. I was at leap last year. Did you go to Leap last year? Yeah. I think there was I saw a few there was these and what I love about Leap. Yeah. You see a lot of Saudi technologies coming to life there. Right. Yes. And they I remember there was a robot dog. Yeah. Do you remember seeing? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember. It was so cool what this dog was able to do. And now these dogs is replacing the real dogs and protecting the huge governmental buildings. Maybe not in Saudi Arabia, but I've seen it in some documentaries. you see how the robots are helping us. I always ask myself and I always read it in the news, why people are afraid from technology. It will not take your job. No fair robots might do. No, Who will fix them if they got Well, you see this Boston Dynamics and they've created sort of like military dogs that are used to actually I think they roam around government properties across the US. Right. Exactly. I mean, that's what I'm Yeah. I'm thinking like Robocop here. What if one of them malfunctions, you know? What if your dog at home malfunctions and Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. No, I mean it's an interesting thing about robots. Robots I mean you also have cyborgs. Yes. Cyborgs are where you have like robotic arms. Yeah.

And these arms or these ligaments are also like defined in such a way that you as a person can feel that you have an arm and you have this interaction that it feels like. So no again it's about it's from where you can see the what's your point of view about the technology and in particular this subject or that so inshallah I will have one inshallah okay what's your but when is that I don't I have no idea 2050 maybe if we are living if we are still living in mad has been A privilege and an honor having you here, Habibi. Thank you for having me. So guys, that was Fintech. Hopefully you took something out of it. I definitely took a lot out of it. A lot of inspiration, a lot of wisdom from me. Thank you. Feel free to subscribe, like, share, talk about to your friends, and until next time, peace out.