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Emirates Development Bank (EDB) processed AED 50 million ($13.6 million) in loans through its digital banking app in one month after it launched a new scheme to approve loan applications for startups in five days.
The bank said at the end of August that it would expedite loans for start-ups in its five priority sectors – manufacturing, healthcare, food security, advanced technology and infrastructure – giving approval or feedback within five days, in a service in partnership with peer-to-peer lending platform Beehive.
CEO Ahmed Mohamed Al Naqbi said: “For fintech, on the financing piece, we just went live with that in the end of August, just over a month ago.
“We’ve already done over AED 50 million worth of loans through that system. That for us is a success.”
Al Naqbi was speaking at the session on Innovation Through Partnerships: A Roadmap for Successful Fintech Collaborationat GITEX’s Fintech Surge summit. He also told the session about the bank’s work in speeding up lead in times for account and business openings.
The bank is to take the time it takes to open an account down from 48 hours to just 15 minutes thanks to links to the UAE government app UAE Pass, which allows users to manage their digital identity on a smart phone, he said. The bank is also working with freezones and Dubai Economic Department (DED), he added.
EDB, which has a digital banking app powered by UAE-based fintech YAP, is very focused on working with fintechs that will most benefit the startup community, with proven products that works in the market, he said.
Tan Bin Ru, CEO for South East Asia, OneConnect, the fintech arm of Chinese insurer Ping An, which announced its new UAE entity last week, said UAE users have the highest expectations of neo bank use of any country, according to a OneConnectsurvey.
Ru told the session that the lead in times for setting up digital banks had also sped up markedly in South East Asia, down from 18 months five years ago, to six to nine months now.
(Reporting by Imogen Lillywhite; editing by Seban Scaria)
