Couchonomics with Arjun

Couchonomics is back! For our inaugural episode of Season 02 we're examining the Buy Now, Pay Later model with Mr. Buy Now, Pay Later himself, Hosam Arab: Co-Founder and CEO of Tabby. Buy Now, Pay Later has been an exciting sector to watch. Just a few years ago many viewed it as the golden child of the embedded finance space and now just as many people view it as an objective failure. Hosam b...

Couchonomics kicks off its Amsterdam Special with the Chief Commercial Officer at Adyen, Roelant Prins.  Having led a career in fintech for over 20 years, Roelant has personally experienced the rapid development of the sector. He worked with the Royal bank of Scotland in early 2000 before moving on to head numerous leadership and management roles in payments technology. Roelant has been a speaker...

When Dr Bernd van Linder attained his PhD in artificial intelligence over 20 years ago, the field was viewed as intensely academic with few practical applications. Not desiring to pursue an academic career, Dr Van Linder entered the world of finance in the early 2000s. Over his 20 plus year career he has slowly worked his way to CEO of Commercial Bank of Dubai. In his new position, Dr Van Linder i...

Madhusudanan and Prabhu Rangarajan are the Co-founders of M2P, an innovative, India-born fintech company with ambitious expansion goals for Dubai. However, word on the streets suggests that the party is over for startups, fintech companies included. Madhu and Prabhu start the conversation by highlighting what sets them apart from other fintech companies and offer valuable insights into which finte...

Mihai Draghici joins us on the couch from a busy day on the road. Travelling all the way from Bucharest, he brings with us the exciting story of how the idea for his innovative FinTech company, PayByFace, came about. Coming from an engineering background, Mihai had the bright idea that facial recognition could prove to be a convenient, safe payment system. After all, you never forget your face at...

The Global P2P Payment Market Size accounted for USD 1,872 Billion in 2021 and is estimated to achieve a market size of USD 9,135 Billion by 2030.  The P2P payments market is a very fragmented market. Important players either acquire new rivals or combine with them. The others invest significant money in research and development initiatives. These initiatives lead to market growth for P2P payments...

Investing has often been viewed as an expensive, costly process that only a privileged few can access. But as technology evolves and grows, companies like Baraka are finding increasingly creative ways to give people access to financial markets. Founder and CEO of Baraka, Feras Jalbout, joins us for a lively discussion that sparks off with a bit of a hot-take. Since Baraka charges no commission, it...

Abdullah Al-Othman joins us on the couch today to share his views on an ever-evolving fintech landscape. As the founder of Geidea, one of Saudi Arabia’s leading fintech companies, Abdullah’s first order of business is to solve a small mystery for us: what does the name Geidea mean? Once that’s cleared up, Abdullah shares his view on what makes fintech in Saudi Arabia unique from other places in th...

In terms of fintech adoption, Egypt has been a little slow on the take compared to other nations. However, companies like ValU are changing that. As innovative companies and dynamic leaders forge a path to the future, Egypt emerges as one of the most exciting regions on the fintech map. Our guest and guide today is Walid Hassouna, founder and CEO of ValU . He breaks down some of the key factors dr...

NFTs are a hot topic very few people really understand. For many of us, our first time hearing of NFTs was in 2021 when they suddenly seemed to be a digital gold mine. However, for the patient community that diligently crafts the famed images, NFTs represent an opportunity for profound and fundamental transformation. Kristel Bechara joins us on Couchonmics to share her view as the rising star of t...

Around the world, open banking adoption is rising steadily, embraced by a growing number of banks and fintech companies providing innovative financial products and tapping into new market segments. As of the end of Q2 2022, global research identified 1,578 banking platforms that are making APIs available, representing an annual growth of 8%. To identify all the advantages and the challenges this g...

Fintech is an ecosystem in a state of ordered chaos. The rules change just as frequently as the consumers do, and businesses must adapt to both or be squeezed out of profits. In this competitive, fast-paced environment, each player focuses on securing their own interest. While this leads to phenomenal individual success stories, some leading figures believe it is important to keep an eye on the bi...

Many of us never consider money as a serious concept until later on in our lives. By then, the damage has been done: unnecessary purchases and loans have wormed their way into the wallet. Smeetha Ghosh-Jorgensen, CEO and co-founder of Cashee, knows these dangers all too well. In this episode, she takes us through how Cashee will encourage teenagers to be mindful of the ways they use money.  In tod...

In 2021, emerging venture markets in the Middle East, Africa, Pakistan and Turkey saw record-breaking activity levels in the investment space. As 2022 forges ahead, we can expect to see another year of unprecedented investment activity in these regions despite turbulence in the global markets. Gaurav Dhar is a CEO at Marshal & MENA FinTech Association Board Member and in this, the brand new ep...

The 2020s have not been an easy time for investors. Although investing seemed to be showing signs of recovery, recent trends have seen investment into some sectors take a nose-dive. Businesses struggle to keep pace with rising interest rates, record levels of inflation, and many other seemingly overwhelming economic macro-forces. A stinging question lurks silently in the background; Will investmen...

MENA has made considerable economic progress over the last decade. Still, a couple of formidable challenges remain, including transforming local economies and inclusive job creation. Insurance has the potential to address these challenges and help countries in the region achieve their growth targets. Despite these potential benefits, the insurance sector is underdeveloped in the MENA region and it...

The FinTech industry is rapidly expanding and evolving. New innovations and inventions spring up every day at every point in the financial world. In all this excitement, some segments become overlooked. Insurance, bogged down by hundreds of years of tradition and legacy, is one of those neglected and forgotten segments. But Tanja Magas, Chief Data and Analytics Officer at Democrance, believes othe...

Over the past couple of years, digital transformation has continued to accelerate across all sectors, and commerce has been no exception. Even as society is getting back to normal, with restrictions lifting and offices reopening, habits adopted during the pandemic are sustained. Online and offline, spending has been transformed. While uncertainty and unpredictability are now expected, one thing th...

 It’s an open secret that credit, when leveraged intelligently, has the power to unlock incredible potential in your business. This is the major reason why credit is so easily accessible in many parts of the world. But, Pakistan, a nation with over 50 million active bank accounts, has been relatively slow to conform to the trend, with only 500 thousand credit cards nationwide. Omair Ansari, the fo...

BNPL payment industry in Africa & Middle East has seen huge growth over the last four quarters, supported by increased ecommerce penetration along with the impact of economic slowdown due to disruption caused by COVID-19 outbreak. According to the Q4 2021 BNPL Survey, the BNPL payment industry in the region is expected to grow by 99.8% on an annual basis to reach US$ 7187.8 million in 2022! To...

Visa as the world leader in digital payments has a relentless commitment to innovation. It is widely considered that Visa is actually the first fintech in the world. That is why we're so excited to have on the couch Dr. Saeeda Jaffar, Senior Vice President & Group Country Manager – GCC, Visa. Saeeda is a chemical engineer who shifted into the fintech sector couple of years ago and in this...

Zand, the first digital bank to provide both retail and corporate banking is set for imminent launch in the UAE, subject to final regulatory approvals. Is Zand the way of future banking? Can traditional banks transform and catch up with fintech digital platforms that are emerging? Those are just some of the questions we got to ask Olivier Crespin, Co-Founder and CEO of Zand, and General Partner at...

Over the past 25 years, Network International has built a business based on long-standing and trusted relationships with many of the leading merchants, financial institutions and payment networks operating in the Middle East and Africa. In this episode of Couchonomics with Arjun we are discussing the mission of the Network International, an overview of the MENA’s current state when it comes to the...

How to navigate and seize the opportunities in disruption that is happening in the banking industry and financial services? To uncover what the future holds for different players that are offering financial services, in this episode of Couchonomics with Arjun we have Philippe De Backer, Managing Partner and Leader of Global Financial Services Practice at Arthur D. Little. Together with Ignacio Gar...

Crypto markets are in free fall this month. To understand better what is behind recent events in the Crypto world we invited Anas Bhurtun & Danosch Zahedi, hosts of Crypto Sheikhs podcast, a fantastic show that is tracking and explaining what is going on with cryptocurrencies. For the first time we had two guests on the couch at the same time, which resulted in a super-insightful chat about th...