Kuumar Shyam (Aletihad)

Abu Dhabi-based Wio Bank PJSC are approaching 18 months since launch and Jayesh Patel, the Chief Executive Officer, has revealed to Aletihad their future plans and success reasons behind "the region's first platform bank" as they have called their unique factor.

Founded in September 2022, and calling themselves "the region's first platform bank", Wio is jointly owned by Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company (ADQ), Alpha Dhabi Holding, e&, and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) – with an initial capital outlay of Dh2.3 billion.

In the short span, it has already won accolades such as the MENA Digital Bank of the Year, Best Neobank – UAE, Best Digital Bank Newcomer and the Most Innovative Mobile Banking App – UAE at various junctures. After starting with products for SMEs, they launched their retail offering WIO Personal last quarter.

There are more developments on the cards, and Patel got down to speaking about them and the banking scenario in the UAE. Excerpts:

Q. Wio Bank started one year back, at a time when some banks are merging or restructuring. Is there space for digital banks in such a scenario?

Jayesh Patel: The UAE has a very competitive banking sector, with 30 plus retail banks offering propositions to customers, and improving by the day. As markets mature and companies move towards digital, I think some aggregation has had to happen. If you look at traditional banks versus digital banks, it is not about the number of banks, but the types that are changing.

Traditional banks were built around a product, given to the customer and whatever goes to the customer is broken down into silos – cards, accounts, etc – structured in such a way where the limitations are the products and the verticals that are created. I think digital banking takes that away and makes it a lot more customer centric. Traditional banks have shifted their operating model and investing heavily in technology, too. Yet, we are natively built in digital eco-system, our operating model is different. How we come up with products, services, engage with customers is very different because our DNA is different. I think there is room for both models.

How was the first year for your bank?

We have had a fantastic year. The UAE has a very clear strategy where they want to become a digital hub for the region and beyond. One of the key enablers of that is having a digital native platform for money. We want to take that role. The first thing we started with was SMEs [small and medium enterprises]. Covid impacted SMEs globally. I think we've had an excellent run.

I think, with digital, you are able to partner closer with the customer, than previously. Taxes are coming to the UAE starting next year. For corporates, you can create virtual cards... to track and budget better. We've crossed over 45,000 businesses joining us in the first 14 months or so. Three months ago, our retail proposition Wio Personal launched to fantastic reception. We have a lot more to come.

What is next?

We have simplified money. We are launching credit card soon. We removed a lot of fees and charges so you understand exactly what you pay for. Remittances are done with the best rates. You get 6% interest, one of the highest in the UAE, for your savings with us, without extra time commitments.

We try to give our customers the confidence to manage their money. In the UAE, we can get carried away with our spending. On our retail app, you can save for tomorrow by creating savings goals, and invest. There you can also open an investment account, trade in US equities ETFs at free commission, and safely. We want to bring a new flavour of managing money to customers.

Where is digital banking headed?

We are a platform bank, the next evolution after digital banking. There are three parts of platform banking. One is developing the apps that we have launched for retail, for business, for corporate. That continues for us as vertical No. 1.

The second is embedded finance, where customers will no longer have to come to a bank to access money, payments, credit, etc. If a businessman is in e-commerce, they have the data but need to come to the bank for credit. From the bank's perspective, risk management needs to be done. But if the data is available, banks can manage the risk better so the bank will come to the customer on the platform of choice.

The last part is banking as a service (Baas). With embedded finance, custom products for that platform are created. BaaS is more cookie cutter, where we build a bunch of products and it's plug and play for a company. You may be a retail company and want to give your customer a debit card or a virtual card. You plug into our API's, you consume them; as long as you follow the rules.

Traditional banks have a notion of cross-sell. We have a notion of cross buying. It's a shift in mentality, instead of me trying to push my product on to you, how can I address the need you have? And you will start seeing that when our credit card comes out.

When are your credit cards coming?

We have been in the beta testing stage for quite some time. We have 200 early customers who are working with us, giving us feedback. But it is going to be a nice, all-in-one card rather than confuse people with a card each for travel, shopping, groceries, Amazon, Noon, etc from the same banks.

The benefit structure is super simple. Most credit cards globally run on credit platforms built in a certain way within certain rules for it to work. So we built a whole brand new platform, and eliminated 80% of the complexity for a customer.