AL-BANDAR Trading, which owns and operates 18 Home Center stores in Saudi Arabia, has joined forces with the Saudi British Bank (SABB) to offer "Easy Buy" facility to customers. This unique business tie-up to finance customers to buy from the top-notch range of Home Center furniture and household needs on installment-basis was announced by Waleed Shafiqullah, SABB's business manager for customer finance in Riyadh Saturday. "The financing will be processed within 10 minutes at the store itself as per provisions of SABB Amanah Islamic financing program," said Waleed in the inaugural ceremony.
The event was attended by Mofarah Jahbelli, Al-Bandar's general manager; Vittal Prabhu, chief operating offer; Suresh Srinivas, national marketing manager; Wassim El-Hajj, SABB's sales manager and Abdullah M. Al-Gain, Area manager for customer sales finance.
Spelling out the salient features of SABB's Amanah financing and its tie-up with Home Center, Prabhu said, "the customers will be the main beneficiaries because they will be required to pay the cost in a staggered schedule." All Home Centers, he said, are packed with "an impressive selection of top-class furniture, houseware, garden furniture, glassware and carpets besides a range of accessories used at homes.
"This Easy Buy facility extended by the bank will enable the shoppers to buy things of their choice on easy and affordable prices at Home Center stores across the Kingdom," said Srinivas, adding that the Home Centers are one-stop-shops for furniture and household needs. He pointed out that "the Easy Buy facility is currently available in Riyadh and it will be shortly available at our stores in Western and Eastern Provinces.
Waleed said that "SABB Amanah financing is fully Shariah-compliant and we have developed special products for Saudi Market."
"This product means in-store installment financing called 'Easy Buy', which covers only in-store locations of Al-Bandar Trading," he said. "Basically, our in-store Internet connection will allow us to pull customer's record from Saudi Credit Bureau on the basis of which the financing will be approved," he explained. "Whether it is SABB Amanah financing facility that you seek, or that dream furniture from Home Center stores, you will find that our finance products will meet your expectations in value, price and approval time" the bank officials said.
© The Saudi Gazette 2007
