Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Prashant Shrivastava, Executive Director at Tarabut Gateway.
Q: For those who have never heard of it, how would you describe Tarabut Gateway?
A: Tarabut Gateway is the MENA region’s first and largest regulated open banking platform, that connects a regional network of banks and FinTechs via a universal application programming interface (API). By offering tools that allow the facilitation and distribution of personalized financial services, Tarabut Gateway enables financial institutions to build a new world of financial services in MENA.
Q: How did the idea behind the platform come about?
A: When we looked into the financial services sector, we identified a huge gap in MENA; the lack of personalization of products and services. While financial institutions sit on incredible amount of financial data, the products and services they are still a ‘one-size fits all . Financial data is one of the most if not the most underutilized kind of data. Financial data such as income levels, spending behavior and saving habits can be utilized to tailor propositions to meet the need of the customer. Open Banking helps with addressing that
When we first started in 2018, we identified the lack of a robust infrastructure to support fintechs in their operations and connecting them to the ecosystem hence it was important for us that Tarabut Gateway to be built as a collaborative platform. Tarabut Gateway enables collaboration between financial institutions and fintechs to build innovative solutions together with faster to market delivery.
Q: How can your platform help banks?
A: Tarabut Gateway enables banks to understand their customers better and provide personalized products and services. It also provides banks and TPPs partnership opportunities in which the banks can also use to further enhance their offerings. Banks can benefit with Open Banking with lowered customer acquisition costs and increased customer retention rate through increasing customer engagement on their digital platforms. We help financial institutions in embracing Open Banking and help them in doing so quickly through our consulting services that assist them with their Open Banking roadmap and strategy. Our Open Banking compliance service currently supports the UK, Berlin, and MENA standards.
Q: You’ve recently raised $13 Million in seed funding; can you tell us something more?
A: It is a great pleasure to see investors seeing the potential in us and in Tarabut Gateway to drive the Open Banking movement in the MENA region and that we are the right partners to do so.
The funding will be used to help us expand in three key areas which we call ‘the Three T’s’ – talent, technology, and territory. We look forward to employing the best talent as the right people are vital for any business to thrive. As a tech-based company, naturally, we will be investing into latest technologies to ensure further enhancing on our scalability, security and product offerings. Territorially, we also want to look at our regional and even global footprint, as we continue to scale geographically.
