The Open Finance Working Group of the MENA Fintech Association (MFTA) has published a new report highlighting the significance of embedded finance in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and how open finance and open banking continue to drive its growth.
Businesses worldwide have maintained a huge interest in embedded finance products and solutions, mainly because they enable them to function as Fintechs and offer great benefits to the customer’s online journey.
The MFTA Open Finance Working Group’s latest report clearly states the advantages of embedded finance. It examines why it’s fast becoming the all-important product for financial and non-financial organisations in the MENA region.
The report identifies the ability of embedded finance to enable ‘any brand to incorporate innovative financial services swiftly and affordably into consumer experiences’.
Furthermore, the report also states that adopting APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) in sharing banking capabilities and customer-approved data means embedded finance is now ‘an efficient and convenient option for providers and recipients of all sizes’.
Therefore, the Group’s report classifies the applicability of embedded finance across an array of industries as a solution that can be re-designed and practised in any particular field.
A Worldwide Prospect for Payments
This latest finance report from the MFTA follows its SHIFT report, which was released in April. The SHIFT report is a wide-ranging multivolume guide that the global Fintech community can adopt to better handle the payment terrain of the MENA region.
Nameer Khan, chairman and founding board member of the MFTA, believes the MENA region is a “global opportunity hub,” and its proven leadership “has created tremendous opportunities to further amplify the impact on a global stage.”
Khan also believes that “the evolution of technologies being built and scaled from and outside the region is phenomenal.”
The report features sources and expert opinions from within the Fintech industry, including information and data from Tarabut, MasterCard, and the LIBF (London Institute of Banking and Finance).
According to Hakan Eroglu, MasterCard’s Data and Services Lead for Global Open Banking & Open Data Practice, “the use of APIs for sharing customer-permissioned data and banking capabilities makes embedded finance an efficient and convenient option for providers and recipients of all sizes.”
Eroglu continues: “embedded finance is now making that growth a reality in MENA by allowing almost any brand—big or small—that adopts APIs to become a fintech company.”
Contributing to the discourse, Kareem Refaay, GCC at LIBF and the MD of MENA, opined: “Integrating payments into the online sales journey might not sound like a disruptive use of technology, but it’s a billion-dollar business, and here [in the report] we explain why.”
In closing, he said: “on behalf of LIBF MENA, we are very pleased with the reception of the past reports, and they drive us to continue delivering impactful insights to the region.”
