United Arab Emirates-based Optasia plans to grow its financial-services business in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America in the next three years, seeking a larger market of under-banked customers.
(Bloomberg) —
United Arab Emirates-based Optasia plans to grow its financial-services business in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America in the next three years, seeking a larger market of under-banked customers.
The company already operates in more than 40 nations, offering services such as airtime, data, real-time credit scoring and micro-loans. It’s now considering expanding to Malaysia, Thailand, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil, founder and Chief Executive Officer Bassim Haidar said in an interview.
Latin America and Southeast Asia are “territories where we’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg currently,” he said. New African countries include Egypt, Kenya and Rwanda, the 51-year-old said.
About 1.4 billion adults globally are unbanked due to a lack of money, distance to the nearest financial institution and insufficient documentation, according to the Global Findex 2021 survey. The market has been a target for fintech startups expanding aggressively to capture those types of customers who are also connected to the internet, particularly via a smartphone.
Haidar, a Nigerian-born Lebanese entrepreneur, is also trialling new products such as pre-scoring individuals on e-commerce websites to be able to buy-now-pay-later and providing street vendors that sell airtime and data with credit, he said.
Founded in 2012, Dubai-based Optasia, formerly Channel VAS, is valued at more than $1 billion and backed by investors Ethos Capital Partners LLP, Development Partners International LLP and Waha Capital PJSC.
Trading in multiple jurisdictions has meant Optasia has been able to offset a sell-off in African currencies with those in the Middle East. The firm has grown at a faster pace than inflation, which is at multiyear highs in nations such as Ghana and Nigeria where it operates, Haidar said. Revenue is expected to increase 36% this year to $3.2 billion, according to the entrepreneur.
The company may consider a dual listing on Africa’s largest bourse in Johannesburg and in either London or Dubai next year. It earlier scrapped a move to the Nasdaq due to unfavorable conditions, Haidar said.
“We’ll decide sometime next year on this, once the markets improve, hopefully,” he said.
Stock markets have slumped across the globe with central banks determined to quash inflation even at the cost of a recession, unleashing the most aggressive tightening of monetary policy in a generation. The MSCI World Index is down 19% this year and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index 21%.
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