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The FWDstart Podcast is a weekly show at the intersection of venture capital, startups, and strategic industries shaping the MENA region. Each episode features candid conversations with founders, investors, and operators behind the region’s most ambitious companies, from frontier AI and fintech infrastructure to climate tech, construction, energy, and space.
# Tewfik Cassis, Lean Technologies
**[00:00:00]** But we never let today stand in the way of our ambition. The equivalent of AWS for fintech, in other
words, we want to be that ubiquitous, that reliable, and that necessary. There's no real reason for
you to use debit over an account-to-account. So we're definitely going after that share of
transactions. So what excites you most about stablecoins? I think the way it calls them by this kind
of like superconductor at room-temperature for payments. We're no longer really constrained on lines
of code. Card present, card not present. Then there's going to be agent present. Like that's kind of
the paradigm As a customer though, why would I give a shit? I love using Apple Pay. Why would I use
pay by bank? Let us start by contextualizing things, can you maybe just frame what Lean is today?
Yeah. I think, I think that'd be helpful. So, you know, what are the biggest parts of the business
in terms of where you make money, revenue lines- Yeah metrics. Absolutely. Give it all to me.
Splurge on me. Absolutely. No, absolutely. I'd love to. First of all, thank you for having me.
Absolutely. it's a, it's an absolute pleasure to be here. Lean is a fintech infrastructure company.
I like to think we're the premier fintech infrastructure company, but I'm clearly very biased. We
do, we do
**[00:01:00]** a couple of things. We provide payments, for many of our clients, for most of our clients who offer
payments in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. today we provide account-to-account or open finance, open
banking payments. Our ambition is much sort of greater than that. You know, our hope is to provide
all different types of payment rails that a client would expect. We also, because of the fact that
we're a licensed open banking provider in Saudi Arabia, and, you know, we've got our in-principle
approval to provide open finance here in the UAE, we are fortunate enough to be able to offer, what
we call account information services-. which is verifiable financial data services. That's a really
powerful product because it allows so many businesses to leverage verified financial information to
do things like, you know, verified onboarding of a customer, verified dispersals-. leverage cash
flow data to do underwriting, in a loan setting. so whether you're a buy now, pay later or you're a
traditional lender, you can leverage that information to sort of supplement the credit score, and
offer loans that way. So we like to think of ourselves as sort of an end-to-end fintech
infrastructure company, and certainly our ambition is to do
**[00:02:00]** that. I think if you were to think of, make a parallel would be sort of the equivalent of AWS for
fintech in the Middle East. We want to be that ubiquitous, that reliable- Yeah and that, necessary.
That was definitely the first thing that struck me there was the conscious framing as a fintech
infrastructure company- Yeah Incorrectly now, but maybe historically would've been correct, the,
generally the shorthand when you think of Lean is open banking. Yeah. Or, you know, because you have
such close association with it being the sort of leader as far as, and being very consultative even
with the regulatory bodies in both the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but you don't see yourself as that. No.
We certainly have broader ambitions than open banking, open finance. Not that, you know, open
banking, open finance are not big in and of themselves, but- Yes. No bad thing. Yeah. As sort of how
we position ourselves to our, to our merchants and the type of s- problems we want to solve for our
clients and for end users is that we can provide very reliable, fintech infrastructure products for
them. and look, and there's a consequence of a couple of things. I mean, we look globally, y- when
you look globally at the, at the m- at the market, let's take
**[00:03:00]** account-to-account payments. Yeah. You know, there's a-- We're, we're launching our account-to-
account payments product. It's a great product. It has super valuable use cases- where merchants or,
you know, clients can use that to help customers top up a wallet, send money home, put money in an
investment app. is it going to be the totality of payments, that are offered? Probably not. I think,
you know, there's going to be multiple rails. We're already seeing the emergence of new- Yes sort of
stablecoin rails that are coming on. Car- We'll get, we'll get to that. We'll get there, yes, I'm
sure. But, you know, and cards, and cards have a-- will continue playing an important role-. at our
society. So I think we want to be able to-- we want to make it as easy for you to build your
business on Lean- as it is to set up a website. So you shouldn't have to be stitching together five
or six different providers. So that's sort of the- Yes.. the long-term ambition. Now, today, I think
if you were to say, like, our current offerings are open banking and open finance, that would be
broadly correct. But we never let sort of today stand in the way of our ambition. No, that's very
true. So you don't envision the UAE going down the garden path of, Brazil with regard to Pix in
terms of,. Obviously, that's different in terms of being very government mandated, but, you know.
Yeah, I mean, I think, I think account-to-account
**[00:04:00]** payments will eat up a large share of, you know.. We're, we're announcing our pay by bank products,
so- Yeah, hence why you're here.. yeah, that's why we're here, right? If you didn't think so, I
mean, this- Yeah, we were very-.. administration.. we have secular belief in that, you know. Sure.
We believe this is going to- Yeah.. be a fairly dominant market share, component. but ultimately
consumer choice is going to lead the way, and, what is provided and availed for by the regulator and
the banks will also, drive a big chunk of that. I mean, I think Pix started so much earlier in the
journey in Brazil. Yeah. card penetration hadn't yet really taken off there, so it's a, there's
different market dynamics, and we're, we're attuned to those dynamics here in our markets. Well,
this is somewhat ana- analogous, maybe more from a credit perspective- absolutely.. as opposed to a
debit perspective. But- yeah.. there are, there are some commonalities. And, yeah, I mean, there's,
there's no real reason for you to use debit over, an account-to-account, so- Fair point.. we're
definitely going after that share of transactions. Okay, exactly. Okay, we'll, we'll get into that.
Yeah. We'll get into that. The thing I've probably been covering most about Lean over the last 12
months or so has been various different licensing announcements- yeah.. as is often the case. But
obviously- These unlock meaningful, and these are meaningful in terms of unlocking new products-
Yeah that you
**[00:05:00]** can release to the market. Like I remember speaking to Mehdi last year, and we were talking about, I
think he was using like Tabby as an example with regard to like you could do, like better merchant
onboarding and you could do like credit risk assessment, but something that you weren't really able
to do at that particular moment in time was collections because- Yeah it was a single instance
payment as opposed to- Exactly.. over a longer time horizon. So we're talking about we're on the
cusp of this product launch, tomorrow with regard to account-to-account, but what have these recent
licensing developments unlocked with regard to new products that you can- Yeah bring to market?
Look, I mean, open finance and open banking, so the open finance is UAE, open banking is in Saudi
Arabia. both of them have a framework for data, so verifiable financial data, which is what Mehdi,
Yes.. one of our founders, mentioned in a previous interview with you. that financial data can be
used for a number of different purposes. So because it's coming now in a structured format from the
banks, it can be leveraged much more usefully in an underwriting process. It's structured, it looks
a certain way. We obviously do quite a bit of sort of processing enrichment on top of it,
categorization of what it is. We know every single way income can or can't be represented
**[00:06:00]** appropriately. we understand how to extract the proper debt obligations that are inside a cash flow.
As you know, many of our clients don't yet have that ca- capability. So when you work with us, you
can really provide that intelligent underwriting. Yeah. And it's important in our part of the world
for, you know, a number of reasons. If you look at the fastest growing segments, first of all,
societies are both under-lent to. Yeah. and if you look at the fastest growing segments, it's youth.
And Saudi Arabia is a very young country, as is the UAE. It's, expats and migrants. And there's
large chunks of both of those populations in both those countries. And the third is gig w- gig
workers. So there's a lot of creatives in both countries, a lot of people with sort of atypical
employment profiles. Yeah, niches, yeah. And those people are just completely missed- Excluded.. in
a typical underwriting process. so when you work with a company like ours, when you, when you
leverage our data products, you can do this intelligent cash flow based decisioning and cash flow
based underwriting. And we're really proud to be like doing that in the market. There's so much
social good that comes with that, and obviously a lot of our clients are able to expand their loan
book that way. on the payment side, what we can now offer under the open finance framework in the
UAE is a
**[00:07:00]** bunch of robust and different payment methods. So look at the UK, eight years ago, eight and a half,
give or take years ago, the UK launched open banking payments. For the most part, up until I think
three weeks ago, it was barely single instant payments. So you could do one-off payments, unless if
you were a sweeping account, it was broadly just one-off payments. The UAE is like totally
leapfrogging that. The types of payment types and models, you know, variable on demand, variable
recurring, fixed recurring, it's really like a sophisticated suite of products. So what we've done
is we've sort of taken that alphabet soup of potential opportunities- Yeah.. and we've clustered
them into these like cohesive products that match merchant demand and created a wrapper and a bunch
of value added services around it. So you take a Any lender or particularly, you know, a buy now,
pay later lender where there's like a very flexible repayment, schedule. Schedule. We've created a
sort of synthetic direct debit type product we call collections-. that leverages the open finance
framework and allows you to sort of pull as needed, in a way that, you know, the first payment might
be different from the second, might be different from the third as you sort of use your buy now, pay
later or Tabby or Tamara card to do a bunch of different payments or,
**[00:08:00]** or do that. And that's a, th- that sort of combines the best of what exists, combines the best of
global bench practices on direct deposits, combines the best of what we know about the core payments
rails, and allows you to do it. And because we've been in the market for a long period of time, we
know when those payments are likely to fail or succeed. Yes. And the last thing you as a merchant
want or user, end user wants is a payment to fail, 'because then something could get repo'd, your
book gets rerated. So we know ahead of time, we can sort of predict, we can guarantee, we can
provide warning signs. and that's, that's the magic of what we do. That's, that's what we do. And on
the collection side, that's why it's super exciting. How client-led is that versus proactive on your
part looking at what's developing elsewhere in the world? And you mentioned there looking around-
Yeah.. sort of unifying that into, you know.. It's a mix. Look, we have, we have perspectives and
conviction. Like we-. we obviously, we talk to our partners at TrueLayer, Plaid, and- Yes.. every
quarter I have a bunch of people that I do a lot of sharing with. I learn a lot about what's going
on in Brazil and around the world, you know? I, we dev- we try to develop our own mental model of-.
what best practices look like. Our clients come first. Yep. We
**[00:09:00]** do monthly business reviews, we do quarterly business reviews. We're in Slack channels. I'm often in
Slack channels responding. You know, every PM, every engineering manager, every tech lead, every-
everybody's expected to be reading that too. And now with the age of AI, you can sort of.. We have,
like, these agents that just run through this- Yeah.. and just, like, extract this information for
us. In those meetings, in those conversations, in the hallway conversation going into the monthly
business review, we develop our empathy for what the client needs or the client wants. So when we
took the open finance framework, it wasn't just like a copy-paste ship and, you know, ship and
repeat kind of model. We were like, "How did, how do these primitives, or these artifacts that are
being shipped from the regulator, how can we create something cohesive a client can use?",
Historically, I suppose connectivity has probably been the front door- Yeah for Lean. Does that
change now? Like it's more of a, it's starting to get to be.. It's always been a multi-product
suite, but it's been kind of layered. Like when I talked to Mehdi last time, he had a great,
framework for this, was sort of the merchant's hierarchy of needs- Yeah.. which I loved, and it was
a great way of sort of trying to visualize that and to better understand it. When you're expanding
into different sectors
**[00:10:00]** now, like e-commerce or travel, and these different verticals, I suppose connectivity is still
obviously there in that you're providing like, you know, the potential for pay by bank or, you know,
on the, on the checkout. But I'm curious about how you layer above that then. So for something like,
an e-commerce platform where you're integrating into the checkout, how do you layer the stickiness
there? Yeah. Is there sort of obvious a- adjacencies or products that you build on? look, it varies
by, it varies by vertical and customer, but like broadly speaking, connectivity is the top of
funnel. You know, how many customers are you able to get in the door and can you convert them? for a
com- for an e-commerce player, speed- Yeah.. and conversion rate is, matters a lot. Like every
couple basis points of conversion, impacts whether or not the customer decides.. Cart abandonment-
To buy, yeah.. is impacted. A bunch of other things are impacted. It ma- that, you know, speed and
conversion matter less, I wouldn't say don't matter at all, but they matter much less in like an
investment app. Yes. Where someone, there's a high conviction. You've already done the pain of KYC.
This is where you buy your stock. You want to get SpaceX shares.
**[00:11:00]** You know, you're going to go through- You're not going to get pissed off at that point if you try
and- You're going to do it three or four times, right? Like, you know, and like, and the trading app
can maybe wait to reconcile the payments. Yeah. Fin operations looks very different. whereas in
e-commerce environments where they're used to the card network saying like, "Payment's good. We'll
settle with you in a few days," they don't need the money now. They just need that message. So we
build a different product. That's why our checkout product looks different from our deposits
product. We build different products to meet those different needs. but broadly speaking, I think..
So a bit of a tangent, but I think- No what I'm trying to say is like each merchant pathway is
different, but each merchant needs broadly the same things. They need a lot of people going in the
funnel. They need those people to exit the funnel successfully, and they need a payment message that
they can reliably stand behind to provide a good and service. The nuances and the speed and the
rates and how often, how frictionful they can make it, and whether or not they're willing to, like,
make it less frictionful and take some maybe, like, chargeback risk. You know, you see that with
cards where you waive the 3DS. Yes. And then you're like, "Whatever, I'll, I'll refund if there's a
lot of chargebacks." On the chargeback side of things, I suppose that's one of maybe the advantages
of account-to-account payments for the merchant side of things is that chargebacks aren't a thing.
Am I correct in thinking that?
**[00:12:00]** Or are there more complicated nuances? it's a little bit more nuanced than that, yeah. I mean, for
the most part, chargebacks aren't a thing in the card sense, so it's quite difficult- to do. Like,
you wouldn't expect to see an account-to-account chargeback fraud- Yes.. or the type of chargebacks
that happen, in an account, in a card-to-account. Probably not likely. Yeah. It's, it's very
unlikely, very difficult. There are consumer protections in place, though. That's what I'm trying to
get at. In the, in the event that, in the event that a merchant absconds or doesn't deliver the good
or service, there are, there is a liability framework in place-. you know, governed by the central
bank and the brass, the entity that manages this, to protect consumers. So, but you know, that's in
the event of merchant fraud. There isn't- Yes.. the type of ch-chargeback risk that you see on cards
where, like, consumers will buy crypto, it goes down, they'll have, like, sort of buyer's remorse
and then- Yes.. issue a chargeback on the card. And like, there's very little you can do that isn't
costly as a merchant. I wanted to ask about shipping product and deciding what to ideate on. Like, I
mentioned a while ago that you have a super consultative and collaborative relationship with the
regulators, which is obviously great. I'm curious about how you build though in that environment,
because
**[00:13:00]** when licensing approval can sometimes be opaque as to in terms of when that's going to come through,
how do you actually allocate resources and plan accordingly? Is that, is that difficult to do? How
do you decide whether to forward plan for something when you don't know you're going to be able to
launch it- Yeah versus current surface areas that you can dedicate time to- yeah.. that you know are
going to be more- That's a great question.. instantaneous feedback loop, you know? That's a great
question. look, we don't. Yeah. Like we don't know. I mean- I love that.. like it's, we take a lot
of risks. and fortunately enough, our regulators are quite understanding, and I'll, and I'll often
go to them and be like, "I need to decide this quarter I'm doing road mapping. Should I back this
initiative? Do you think it's going to come or not?" Okay. they can never tell me obviously yes or
no. yeah. But like they.. I think they have some empathy for where we are in terms of resource
allocation. yeah, I mean, w- we try to be ready, for when, regulation comes that we're quick to
market. I mean, you notice like when open finance was done, we're like the first to process the
payments. yeah. You know, Saudi Arabia, in Saudi Arabia we had.. Account Information Services, we
were the first to sort of be ready to go live there. W- I fortunately
**[00:14:00]** believe when payments drops hopefully this year, we'll be the first to process an account-to-account
payment in Saudi Arabia. We take risks. We over-invest. We know we do that. Our bias is to be first
rather than,, to preserve,, our capacity and use elsewhere. but yeah, that's definitely the field
dance. What does that look like in-house? Because you come from a Monzo background. Yeah. And they
sort of have the.. It's just, it's like the squad kind of- Yeah.. squad model. We still have the
same squad model, so we still have a PM, EM sort of for every focus area, PM or PM and a tech lead-.
for every focus area. The each squad has a sort of somewhat clear mission that they're going to go
out and do. They're not big teams. We don't have a lot. We have smallish teams, like one to two
pizza teams, as they sort of Amazon team, model talks about. we have designers by in the pillar
level, so like payments is like a pillar. Okay. We've got multiple teams. Each team has a very sort
of clear remit that they go after. and they- How much autonomy do they have? They have quite a bit,
so that was the next thing I was going to say, is they have quite a bit of autonomy. They, the
teams, they do road mapping with us beginning of every quarter. we sort of bless the roadmaps, so to
speak. They check in every two weeks-
**[00:15:00]** . on updates. In many ways a review is the sort of latency of progress. Like if something were to go
wrong, you have two weeks or that you will have limited visibility before you catch it. So if it's a
six-week review process, you have six weeks. So we keep it tight. It's two weeks. Okay. and then
when things do go wrong, and sometimes they do, we're like, we're very comfortable stepping in and
micromanaging a team, and sometimes it's a, it's a the mission was wrong or the vision or the
roadmap was wrong. Sometimes it's like our externality that sort of messed something up. Sometimes,
I don't know, we're missing a key skill set in that team, like it doesn't have a front end, and
there's all the issues are coming on the SDK. So we address that, and we kind of move on, from the
teams. Do you ever cut your losses? So you ever- Yeah.. stop something that you're working on? yeah,
we do. We do. I mean, we're in sort of active debates in some one or two areas where we're like,
"Should we, should we stop doing that or-" partnership that didn't really go where we wanted to go.
I'm tempted to ask and press, but I won't about, Yeah examples as far as that's concerned. No, look,
I, actually, let me give you an example. We went in the market with an address verification product.
we still think it has a lot of legs,, and a lot of,, potential. Yeah. but, you know, it's something
we decided at a certain point in the UAE that we wanted to put our
**[00:16:00]** resources elsewhere. You know, no, they're going to.. I think the team were great. They executed
really well. They built a great evolution of our SDK to enable address verification, but there are
sort of government services that do some of that work already today, so that became apparent. Yeah.
You know, that happened as we were developing and, you know, client uptake wasn't there, so, you
know, no hard feelings. Team was very proactive about identifying their own limits and moving on to
something else. No, that makes total sense. Still available though if someone wants it though, as
you can say. Nice. Nice. That's a great plug. Let's talk about account-to-account then. My only, or
pay by bank, I'm probably using the wrong terminology here throughout, but what should I be calling
this exactly? We like to call it pay by bank. Pay by bank. Yeah. Pay by bank. So my only context for
using this comes via Revolut, Yes at home in an, in an Irish context, Revolut. Are you familiar with
how like ubiquitous Revolut is in Ireland? yeah. It's the most insane- yeah.. I read in the
Financial Times, I think, an article this week actually. Well, I mean, the other option is that you
have these two legacy banks that went bankrupt and almost brought the whole country down. Yes,
there's not a whole lot of trust- Yeah.. that exists there, so it's- So the Revolut Irish context is
particularly unique in that the- Very,
**[00:17:00]** very unique. which is why Revolut doing it themselves makes a whole lot of sense- yeah.. because I
mean, they- But they're also, it's a beautiful product. It is a beautiful product, yeah. We don't
want to.. I have a lovely view of the former s- former Monzo, alumnus to be so kind, and generous to
Nick and Revolut. But, what is.. It makes-- I totally understand the incentive for a merchant as far
as transaction fees are less. Fantastic. Yeah. Wonderful. It makes a ton of sense obviously for a
buy now, pay later where the margin is shitty anyway. It can be such a massive uplift with regard to
GMV. Yeah. As a customer though, why would I give a shit at the end of the day? How do you
incentivize a customer? Like I have super entrenched behavior. I love using Apple Pay. I use Apple
Pay across- Yeah.. basically anything where it's available. Why would I use pay by bank? Yeah, no,
it's a great question. look, I think there's a couple of things. First of all, those merchant
savings can be passed on to the consumer- in one form or another. So I think you see this sort of
globally, part of the reason Pix got adopted. Yeah. In China, they had the red envelope campaign.
You know, there are a number of
**[00:18:00]** campaigns for when the rails are mature, and I imagine here in the UAE there'll be sort of this
concerted effort to- Similar promote versus- 'because I know merchants have to deal with this like
10 or 25%. Like to give a- Exactly.. sort of cashback incentive. There's this, there's a cashback
incentive in that effect 'because the merchant is saving and, you know, obviously they can pass some
of those savings on. So I do think we're going to see a world-- And we already have in the UAE,
DAMAC- Yes Capital.com have run these consumer campaigns to encourage people to use pay by bank
versus other means. so that is a pathway that I envision is going to only continue to grow, because
the benefits w- accruing to the merchants on some level also need to accrue to the end user. How
involved-- Sorry to cut across you, David. How involved are you in those campaigns? Is there like a
co-marketing? So we as Lean do often some co-marketing, or we will be doing some co-marketing in
some of this stuff., We are very strong believers that consumer behavior is sticky and, you know,
when you do set it up, it'll work and, you know, down the line those savings continue to accrue to
the merchant- Yes you know, and compound to the merchant. And compound, yeah. So it's really, it's a
really useful,, solution. The other piece is like, you know, there's sort of two things that we
compete on. There's three other types of payment rails we compete on. One is a manual bank transfer.
and that's a payment that often just doesn't happen. So like you leave Sarwa or
**[00:19:00]** whatever- Yeah.. investment app you're in, you go to do your manual bank transfer, and then like you
get a phone call from your boss at work and you forget, you know? And like it's not an instant-- You
don't need to do it. Maybe you're on the fence about investing today. You don't know if the market's
hot already, so you don't do it. So that's a, you know- Whatever we can provide is often better than
that. And not even the end user wants to make that investment and, like, doesn't want that extra
friction. So we're reducing the friction for the end user. on the other thing is, you know, the
Apple Pay cards, and I think that's where we face an uphill battle. So when I say there will always
be a place, I think, in our ecosystem for cards, it's 'because, you know, Apple Pay is ubiquitous
and is-- Al- although even Apple Pay is evolving to allow for wallet-style payment. So we-- I don't
know where that's going to go with the NFC opening up, but- Yeah, actually.. definitely if it does
open our market and allow account-to-account, you trust that we'll be there first. and then the
third is, like, this sort of direct debit styles experience that doesn't really-. exist in a
seamless way in the, in the UAE today, that allows for, you know, whether it's a loan repayment or
rent or utilities at DEWA. Yeah. You just set that up once, set it and forget it. the merchant is
happy. They know they're going to get the money.
**[00:20:00]** You're happy. You know you're not going to get your electricity turned off. So that kind of
experience is today very frictionful in the UAE and requires a very- It sucks. Yeah. It sucks. So
we're, we're here to, we're here to solve that, and that's what our collections product solves. How
does the bank feel about all of this? Yeah, that's a, that's a good question. Of- often not, often
not asked. Yeah. how does the bank feel about all this? I think, look, this is open banking and open
finance is often mandated by the regulator. Yes. It's not something banks rush into. Sometimes,
yeah. so you'd think. we've seen some banks really develop excellent experiences, like Wio, who
wasn't mandated to be live first- Sure is the first bank that was live. and I think, there's a great
benefit to being able to move money between bank accounts, you know, for retail users. And if you
believe your offering is great, this is a great, it's a great thing to lean in on. Yeah., We also
know that, you know, banks make quite a bit of money on interchange fees, so, like, there's always
this risk of, like, you know, that fee merchant saving, where's that coming from? But also a lot of
it comes to a bunch of other intermediaries. This is a very direct relationship where the bank, you
know, we're, we're funneling more payments on the bank rails they're getting compensated for in this
market, in other markets they don't get
**[00:21:00]** compensated for. So there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of benefits that accrue to the bank side. I
think right now where banks are is, like, there's this sort of work that has been assigned to them-
Yes.. from the regulator, and it will have some benefits. It might have some drawbacks. So there's
a, there's a mixed reception from the bank side. I think the benefit for everyone in the ecosystem
is that this is becoming regulated, very clear, very standardized. It's good for the merchant, good
for the bank, good for the end user, obviously good for us. Yeah. so I think that evolution is going
to be very welcomed by banks. It's not a plaid situation where we're- Yeah, it's not like a plaid
JPMorgan style, It's very good. but then also you've also got-- I mean, banks are not monolithic,
creatures, right? You've got the fintech, the innovation, the retail teams there. They're really
great. They're excited about this. obviously compliance is al- is always a concern. Fraud, you know,
what is the, what are the fraud vectors that clients might get impacted by? They're naturally less,
more concerned, as I would expect. The checkout product- Yes.. that you're releasing, which is very
interesting., Can you just tell me about how they work? The payment links as well. Yeah. We've got
s- we've got these four features that are
**[00:22:00]** going-- four products that are going out, as part of this pay by bank launch. One is deposits. It's
what- Yes.. what's known- Actually, just be helpful. yeah. We- Take a step back. We've gone, I've
gone bloody everywhere. And the worst tellers ever. Let me, let me frame it. We've got the deposits
product that's for people who are willing to top up, need to top up a wallet. Over there, one of the
things that we're really excited about is this, like, instant one-click payment. We just, we
launched it with Zina, who's our launch partner on it. It should be rolling out in the App Store.
And if you do use it's like, it is Delightfully fast. Like I joke that it's so fast the merchant
might want to slow it down. Yeah. Like it's just like o- once you've set up the mandate, you just
press a button and then- Okay you don't, you never leave the app, you never re-authenticate, it's
just done. It's.. And that's built for an environment where the merchant is regulated. There's a
longstanding relationship between you and the merchant, so that speed is needed. Yeah. Then we've
got this collections product we have spent quite a bit of time talking about already, is this, you
know, direct deposit style experience, direct debit style experience for lenders, real estate,
utility, all those types of players. The third bucket is checkout. And checkout, our aspiration for
checkout is really focusing on conversion and speed for that first-time acquisition of a customer.
It's
**[00:23:00]** built for e-commerce companies that maybe don't have that deep relationship with you. They might
you're checking out as guest. You're not coming back- Yeah.. to them for the second or third time.
Sure. You know? It's like your first-time acquisition. if you interacted with Shop Pay or Stripe
pay-by-link, it'll look similar to that. We'll recognize that this is you-. using your phone number
or some other passkey, and you'll enter OTP or you'll authenticate in some way, and then your bank
details will already be ready through this product that's was availed by open finance called
Delegated SCA. So that's really optimized for that first-time acquisition, speed conversion. and in
that environment what we're, we're hoping to offer is sort of a guarantee of that payment. So while
rails and account-to-account and banks there is some.. It's not quite 80 years of- Yeah.. de hoc
Visa, you know, making sure it's, it's instant and permanent, right? Yes. So there's a lag. Yeah.
We're going to step in on that lag and say like, "We guarantee that this payment will get to you."
That's smart. "And if it doesn't get to you, we'll, we'll make you, we'll make you whole," because,
you know, we've got that experience. So that's our checkout product. That's really what's exciting
there in the checkout product. And the last one is this sort of, we call the no-code approach, that
underpins all three of them. It's our pay by link
**[00:24:00]** product. you know, if sh- if this studio wanted to charge you for it, they can just send you a link
via whatever CRM tool that they use. Yep. Your school wanted s- wants to use it, you want to buy a
car, you want to rent a car, they'll just send you a link. You go through the regulated flow, and
it's all hunky-dory on that front. So those are-- That's the suite. When I talk about the pay by
bank suite, that's that. That's a whole new customer segment. Yeah. Each one unlocks just a whole
different time for us. It solves a whole bunch of different needs for the market. It's based on
market needs and market understanding. Our checkout product, we don't have any or very f- very few
e-commerce players today. There's a lot we're going to learn. We're going to.. You know, but we're
confident that's an, that's a.. We want to focus on building for e-commerce in the checkout product.
What does that go-to-market look like? I appreciate the fact that you're, you're- yeah. No, I'll
tell you.. not sharing. So I'm super curious. I mean, it starts at discovery, right? Like what we do
is we segment our market and we try to understand how the different needs are. This is where the
talking to different players around the world gets super valuable. And we go like, "Okay, this is a
cohesive set of customers that have different needs." We go out and talk to them. We-- Mehdi, you
know, sets up a lot of those meetings. You know, he's one of the most plugged in
**[00:25:00]** people I know in the ecosystem. He brings all those people together. We do a round table, tease out
the needs. Three or four of them will volunteer to be design partners. we start working with them.
And when we get to a feel like we have a place that something's worth talking about, we start the
announcement. Now, that's the beginning of a journey. You know, we're going to start-- we're going
to uncover new things. Like for the collections product, there's a customizable scheduler. For, you
know, this, how we're going to guarantee and step in for the checkout product, you know, that's
going to be refined over time as we have more data that allows us to know and predict when that
might or might not settle. So that evolves. We have the sort of the suite, the pillars, each product
has its.. And then the features get announced over time. It's B2B, also. It's B2B SaaS, so it's not
the- It's true.. it's not It's not quite as like crazy.. like we're not taking bill- we're not
taking billiard- No.. billboards on, Sheikh Zayed Road, like, Not yet. Yeah. Not- Maybe. Yeah. Maybe
in the future. You don't, don't know. But we're at Money20/20. We'll be at Money20/ We'll have a big
booth at Money20/20. That's, that's our, that's our market. That's true, yeah. That's our Coachella.
I've never heard Money20/20 be at that location in particular called.. I mean, I guess it's in the
des- is Coachella in the desert? Yeah.
**[00:26:00]** I don't know if they're at Burning Man. I don't know. But in any case, that's a wonderful way of-..
they're going to have to stick that in their promotional material., Who is the competition for you
then? 'because it's not, it's not necessarily just open banking platforms. You've-- There's a
Mastercard and Visa. Are you, yeah, the, I think as our ambition grows, our competitive set is going
to evolve. It's going to expand, yeah, naturally. Yeah. So I think, historically it's been the open
banking players. Yeah. I think our sights are set firmly beyond that at this stage. there are global
players, you know, that we s- Yeah.. we seek to emulate some component of them in our part of the
world, you know, like- so we do think about that. We also-- And there's also patchwork, you know. So
there's, there's specialized players in one side of the space, so like in underwriting, you know-
Yeah.. there's specialized data providers. In pay by bank, there's specialized pay by bank folks.
And, you know, we think about that tension, you know. As we provide more of the fintech
infrastructure stack, do we create room for a competitor to sort of establish a toehold in an area
they might know much better? So, I mean, that's true. I mean, we're not-- And in that event, you
know, we think about building,
**[00:27:00]** we think about buying. So, like, we're going to be looking at the market- Good chance. We're going
to be looking at the market as to, you know, where we don't have the capabilities or the licensing,
or the time we might feel acquisitive. Where do you feel like you don't have the space, time, or
licensing? Well, I mean, I think I've talked a little bit about, you know, our foray into cards.
Yeah. So that might be an area we do via partnership or acquisition. there's the whole emerging
world of, Web3 payments, stablecoin-powered payments. Yeah. Let's talk about stablecoins. It's, you
know, it's, you know, Stripe acquired Bridge. You know, is this- Privy, Yeah.. you know, Privy. Is
there a world where we might do something similar in our market? It's still TBD, but certainly,
Someone needs to own it.. someone needs to own that space, and I think the UAE is incredibly
forward. And the funny thing is we work across the UAE and Saudi Arabia. So you've got Saudi Arabia
where this is, like, sort of not encouraged. Nothing. Yeah. There's no regulatory framework for it,
so it's like for the most part we don't do anything of that in Saudi Arabia. Yeah, it's very gray
area still, isn't it? And in the UAE, a large chunk of our customer base are offer crypto investing
already in one form or another. And more and more, in segments like real estate, in
**[00:28:00]** schooling, in investment apps, stablecoin payments are starting to establish a toehold. So we look
at that and we're interested in it, and we certainly want to be like-- We don't want to be dis- You
know, pay by bank is around to- Yeah.. disrupt cards. We don't want to be too busy trying to disrupt
cards and not realize we're being disrupted ourselves. And cross-border payments and remittances are
massive for you guys as well, isn't it? the UAE and Saudi Arabia are the second and third largest-
Biggest rem-.. remittance markets in the world. Combined, they're bigger than the USA. and then look
at the broader GCC. I think it's two.. It's as the size of the- Crazy, yeah.. US remittance market.
And that's just consumer. Yeah. You've got trade financing. You've got, you know, you've got
business, payments, cross-border payroll. Like, there's so many use cases-. where you can imagine
stablecoins would be valuable. and there's no one who's- No one has-.. really started this work..
done the same with that. No. So- An insane amount of that remittance flow goes through Lean already,
doesn't it? In terms of partners that you have. A lot of our clients are remittance apps today.
Remittance companies, traditional exchange houses, a lot of them are. we're, we're very bullish on
that segment. It'll continue to grow. It's a very competitive segment. It's slippery. I mean, it's-
Their- Cards never really made
**[00:29:00]** sense with- Yeah remittances anyway- yeah.. given the margin, so cash to cash is like- Every basis
points matters for them. Yeah. and every step of the journey. So if you can automate as much of that
as possible, if you can automate from onboarding all the way to dispersal- Happy days.. you know,
you save them a lot of time, money, errors, and all that other stuff. And there's, the hidden costs,
you know, like-. the chargeback fraud, you know? Like, there's a, it's a great vector for account
takeover fraud, right? Or card- Oh, yeah.. card fraud and chargebacks. You're already operating on a
thin margin, and you got hit with a bunch of chargebacks 'because someone stole someone's card and
loaded on Apple Pay and just sent money home- No good directly. Yeah. What ex- what excites you
most, Habesh, to stablecoins side of things? I think what excites me a lot about it is- That it is,
I think the way the Collison brothers call it is like superconductor at room-temperature for
payments. It's like- It's instant. Yeah. It's traceable. You know exactly where it is. Whenever
there's a problem, you can, you can kind of track it right on the, on the blockchain and know
exactly where it is. I think it's so early in both consumer, merchant, and regulatory adoption that
the upside feels crazy. It's sort of like-- It's a
**[00:30:00]** bit like being around when PayPal was starting- Yes you know, putting its sticker on websites, and
you're like, "Oh, this sounds like it might be cool." Like, I think we're at that s- stage with
stablecoins today. Is that informed by obviously your time before Lean? Was that Rain as a- Yeah..
cryptocurrency exchange? Is that where that first took hold, or has this been something that you've
been interested in for a while? I-- Look, I- Obviously stablecoins have really only come into-
Yeah.. proper consciousness probably the last, like- Yeah.. last year was probably the year of the
stablecoin anyway. I learned a ton about crypto and stablecoins from the team at Rain. I mean, I was
very fortunate. I think they, the Rain, the company Rain and the alumni network that sort of spun
off- the Rain mafia have been very, you know, they're very well plugged in this ecosystem. The
fortunate story is when I was interviewing for Rain, Zach Abrams of Bridge was advising for them. So
he did my interview. Yeah, he did. Right. So I managed to like, you know, learn from him. And then
when he was leaving Coinbase or I think it was Coinbase- he was leaving to start up, to start up
Bridge, I was-- He was, he was telling me a little bit about that journey. So it was, it was always
fun to see how that evolved and then how stablecoin sort of took its own fork in the road from the
broader crypto ecosystem. And I think it did that on purpose, I think, because there was
**[00:31:00]** like, there was- It had to, didn't it? It had to- Yeah.. and because there was, like, true need for
it. There was actually utility. Yeah. Like- There was huge utility for it. Not that there isn't,
like, in storage value- Yes. That's all. Yeah.. and some of the other stuff, and programmable money.
I think there's a lot of interesting stuff that we'll see there. It's more immediate and obvious.
Yeah. But it's less number go up- Intelligible to-.. to the moon kind of thing. It was like- Yeah.
It had real treasury applications- And there's no-.. real cross-border applications. There's no Doge
stablecoin. Yeah. Exactly. Maybe. I mean, look- Exactly. Exactly.. who's to say? Who's to say?
stranger things have- Exactly.. have happened. I'd be interested to talk to you this one bit about I
suppose currently what's going on as it relates to product management and design and how things have
changed with the advent of vibe coding and the collapse- Yeah.. of, you know, the engineer and time
to actually creating something and getting it out into the world and for the feedback loop to happen
has obviously been, you know, condensed so much. How have you found that shift internally, within
Lean itself? I think it's one of the most interesting times in my career. Like, I have to
**[00:32:00]** say, like, if you are-- I almost, I'm, I'm kind of pissed off at myself for being an org leader at
this stage. I'm like- Yeah.. I wish- You could experiment more.. I wish I could have more time to go
and, like, just- Mess around play around with all this stuff. there's a question in one of my
WhatsApp groups was like, "Would you rather be 20 years in the future and not have to worry about AI
anymore, or would it be 20 years in the past and be starting off your career with it?" And like,
undoubtedly for me, I'm like a- yeah I'm a, like, optimist maxer. Yeah. You know, like, I'm like I'm
very excited about where this is going to take us. I think, look, what we're seeing, we're, we're in
the process at Lean of where we're seeing the sort of technological diffusion happening inside the
company. You know, there are certain people that are super AI-built. Yeah. Aditya, one of our
founders, sort of he's like the- Yes.. chief cheerleader on this, on this topic. And then there are
others who, you know, there's not enough time. They're, you know, generally weren't very comfortable
with technology and they haven't yet fully adopted. So we're on a journey, and we're making a lot of
investments, so you see, you know, our own agents usage has really skyrocketed, our own, how we
think about, you know, our shared context across the company has really taken off. You know, that's
an area Aditya's leading on. The type of harnesses we want to build around that. All of that has
been very deliberate investments we're making. And
**[00:33:00]** what was super interesting for me is, like, working with our principal engineer, he told me, Adam,
he was telling me, he's like, "We're no longer really constrained on lines of code." Like, now it
becomes a que- your question about the regulator, you know, being ready becomes more of an issue. So
now we need to look for pockets-. where we're not regulator, regulatory constrained, and then expand
there. So I think the, as the use of these tools expands, our ambition should consequently grow. On
a team management perspective, A, you want people who are going to use this 'because you- they're
just kind of wired differently. They're more experimental. They demonstrate much more ownership.
They demonstrate much more autonomy. so you're going to see people who use these tools just
generally, just the drift is crazy. Yeah. I think Eric from Ramp talks about, like, the ice
breaking, and you're on one side and the other- Ramp is a great example. Yeah. And I think he used
the thing from, like, William Shackleton when they were like on one- Yeah.. some group were on the
i- on the mainland, the other were on the ice, and then, like, within 30 seconds, the- Got it it was
impossible to catch up, right? We're kind of in that, and I can- Yeah.. I can kind of- You can see
that.. sometimes see it, and I s- just look around at someone and I say, like, "You might not make
it." Not just at Lean. You have to be catless. Like, you might not make it in- Yeah.. in
**[00:34:00]** our modern thing. The thing is, it's going so fast. So if you miss this round on the merry-go-round,
you got three more weeks, the next model release will come. You're screwed, yeah. You just get on
the next one. So that's, that's the, that's the good news, that if you're sort of caught up for one
reason or another, but it's, it's, I mean, it's such an exciting time to build. I mean, it's just
insane. It's crazy. And I think people, like, people get hung up on, "I'm a PM" or "I'm a designer,"
"I'm PMM," or they're not going to make it. And people are like, "I'm just shipping." Just fucking
build. I'm building and reacting- Yeah.. to real things immediately. They're- How do you stay up to
date with everything? It's so, it's so hard in terms of what's happening. I mean, like it's to your
point, I mean, just the velocity is- Yeah, it's really tough. I mean, I like to spend my evenings
playing on this, so like when everything's kind of quieted down. I have to say on my, like I, and I
think this is true for a lot of people who are, who are working in tech at this moment, you know,
their social lives have somewhat sort of suffered as a consequence of it. The lines are blurring.
The lines are blurring, and it's like you go from these conversations where everyone's talking about
how to use their agent in this specific way. But like, yeah, I mean, I don't think I'm up to date on
it. I think there's maybe a couple things that I'm.. Like I've, so I use Claude and I love using
Claude, and I was like listening
**[00:35:00]** to, Dan Shipper on Lenny's podcast, and he was talking about Codex, and I was like, "Oh man, I, that
sounds awesome." It's a list of AI things. I missed, I missed the, I missed the Codex train. Oh,
yeah. Like that looks like they're doing some pretty cool stuff. They got an in-app, in-app browser
in their harness. That's like- huh.. why don't I do that? But I, and then I go in and try to do it,
I'm like, "Ah, this sounds so hard." So I like, I missed an entire sort of uplift on that front. So
I think that there are certainly others who are more up to date than I am. What does usage look
like? And like we're often seeing now that- And different engineers have different, like some like
Cursor, some like Cognition, like Devin, like some- it's, it's so like scattered. Like if you-
Yeah.. like mandate a particular thing that you need to use, like obviously at the moment it's like
just use it. Yeah. Just use it and build whatever you can build. But obviously costs also are, you
know- Yeah.. page increases. We're kind of getting to this point now where it's like, "Oh, this is
expensive maybe." Yeah. You know, do we introduce a cap? Like, you know, this whole token maxing
phenomenon things. The conversation is slightly- yeah.. scattered. Obviously a massive enterprise
can eat it. It's not quite as, despite what Uber, whatever they're saying in the CEO- Yeah.. coming
in and saying, you know, "We've blown through the budget." How are you guys? How do you
**[00:36:00]** think about it- Look-.. at your scale?.. six, nine months ago, we like, my.. So I oversee the
engineering OPEX budget also. And I, and I was like, "I am not smart enough to make a call on what's
going to work." Yeah. So I'm going to sort of green light everything. Like anything, any AI tool an
engineer or PM or a designer comes to me and asks for, I'm just going to green light it. We'll
figure it, you know, as long as it meets safety compliance- yeah.. all that stuff, we're just going
to, we're going to go. We're going to experiment. We did that. Naturally, there was sort of this
cohesion around Claude, and we sort of adopted that. We had the better people on Cursor, we had
people on JetBrains and some others., We've also got Codex because it came with part of our
enterprise purchase. Yeah. So we're sort of this dual platform. We're, we're looking at costs now.
We're not reining it in, but like we're certainly tracking. People are paying attention now. Yeah.
We're not, we're not training- Yeah.. pay- paying attention. We're paying attention also, I mean,
the top users, we want to encourage them. We want them to be using it correctly. Of course. We're
also, you know, looking for where people aren't using it as much and we're like, "Well, what's, what
sort of prompt, you know-". "limiting you from being able to use it?" We're not at the stage to rein
it in. I think the next stage- Yeah.. is like we're going to get to a point where it's going to be
like a
**[00:37:00]** couple percentage points of our cost basis, and we're going to be like, "Okay, let's really make a
plan. Should we deploy on-prem an open source model for low-" Yeah.. for low bandwidth tasks?"
That's coming. I know it's coming. We're preparing for it. Yeah. The good news is, you know, because
of the Uber stuff that's being said, we can get ahead of that. Yeah. It's been helpful I think-
Yeah.. really in many respects. I think like in general, like a lot of our tasks are going to
require touching PII data, and to do that you need an on-prem one- In the first place in the kingdom
or in wherever. So like we're going to default anyways going towards some of these sort of cheaper
models. Is all of that kind of sovereignty requirements, are they difficult to contend with? Yeah,
they certainly are. Yeah. I think what, one of the- I was telling- Yes. It's not easy. Yeah. Like
it's not easy, right? And I think different regulators interpret it very differently. I think
ultimately we touch money, we touch people's financial data. We.. There's a huge- Sensitive data..
burden of trust placed on us, a huge.. We're going to take the most conservative approach with this
information. Now, also everything exists in region, so Google Cloud,
**[00:38:00]** Oracle-. AWS notwithstanding the most recent sort of incident. These are in country on-prem, and you
can- Yeah.. you know, you can reserve whatever capacity you need there and you're, you're good. So
it's not as much a limiting factor as it was maybe five, six years ago. but yeah, it's just, it's
something we're need to be mindful of. I did want to ask, I've been doing a small bit of research
and tentative writing on agentic commerce as well. Yeah. I'm curious about how you think about that.
If we have an agent who's sort of disintermediating the checkout process, you know, what does
authen- authentication or pay by bank even mean in that- Yeah in that context? Yeah. I've been, I've
been spending time trying to, trying to wrap my head around it. I mean, I don't know how an agent,
is going to authenticate on behalf of a customer. I know there's a lot of work on the agentic
commerce protocol that's being put out there. Yeah. we are starting to see it in our region where
agents are at least, you know, sourcing. You know, you- It's like-.. a lot of people are starting
the buying journey on- Smart discovery. Yeah. A lot of people are starting the buying
**[00:39:00]** journey in ChatGPT. and then at ti- at some point it's going to be more down- downstream of that.
see, I don't know. I mean, I think th- there was.. Simon Taylor talked, I think, briefly about it
once, where there's sort of card present, card not present, right? And each one of them carries
different fraud rules, and then there's going to be agent present. Like, that's kind of the paradigm
I think we're going to move down to- That's fantastic.. where it's just like a whole certain, like,
human isn't present, an agent is delegated a certain amount of authority, and does that agent have
that authority to take a certain action or has the agent gone rogue? And in the event that the
agent's gone rogue, how do you issue a chargeback off something like that? You know? Like, do you as
a customer, do you as an end user have the right to say, "I didn't authorize that transaction," even
though your agent acted on your instructions, and how vague could those instructions be? Culpability
is going to be such a crazy- Yeah, like, so I think there's going to be a whole different world
there where.. But I think it's exciting. I think it's going to be- No, it is.. it's going to be
super cool. Yeah. Like, 'because A, the way our websites will need to interact will be very
different. The way, you know, we're not going to trigger an SDK for an agent. That doesn't make any
sense. You know, the agents will authenticate very differently. We'll need to think about how to
authenticate to the end user that this is the purchase they're buying.
**[00:40:00]** I sort of think about, the early iterations of Alexa when you could go to your friend's house and,
like, order a bunch of toilet paper- Yeah. as a joke. There's a bit of like, there's a bit of that
element at play, right? Like- That's a good example. I want to ask you about actually build-versus,
buy internally. We're increasingly seeing certain companies maybe are building b- because the cost
of software is not quite gone to zero, but it's, it's, it's drastically, decreased. Like Deel, I
think maybe a good example as far as it's concerned. They've, they've built a lot of their tooling,
internally, maybe s- particularly maybe on the support function side of things, like Jira
replacement. often people joke about like you're not going to build your own CRM or like- Yeah.. if
you do, like you're not going to replace Salesforce. Have you built any internal tooling versus
buying things externally? We, I think different teams are experimenting differently. I messed around
a little bit with a sort of a merchant onboarding tool-. that we, you know, might replace with an
external vendor or might decide to keep, you know, certainly like change the calculation
**[00:41:00]** for that. Yeah. I think we've got different teams, exploring it differently. Certainly there's some
purchases, like, I mean, look at this AI cost needs to come from somewhere. Right? So some- I mean,
at the end of the day, like, yeah.. something's getting pulled. And some of the new things that
we're looking at, like not the, not the CRM software, but some of these sort of the sales pipeline
health- Yeah software that's going, that stuff Can be automated. I'm starting to get there- No, it
sounds like- So we're building some new tools that can be done. That being said, I mean, like, the,
I think the question is SaaS-pocalypse real, right? Yeah. Like, is, like, is Code as a basic-
Basically that. I get it, Yeah. I think there are going to be parts of SaaS-pocalypse that will be
real, and some companies will start to do a lot of the stuff your- theirselves. I mean, like I said
with the conversation I was having with Adam, was like, he's like, "We're no longer constrained to
lines of code." Well, you are going to be constrained by maintenance, although I imagine, like,
we're two models away from also maintenance being automated. and then you're going to be constrained
by taste, and then edge cases, and then maybe more of that stuff will be able to be built and pipe
coded and taken away. Yes. So yeah, I, we are starting to look at things that we're like, "Well,
should we just bring some of this stuff in-house?" I mean, one, to find savings that we can spend on
AI
**[00:42:00]** tools. And two, because we can do customizations. With that being said, that same restriction that
we have had lifted in our ability to ship quickly-. has also been done for the, for some of these
SaaS products. So the good SaaS products are also shipping at an amazing velocity. Yeah. And their
feature list is getting better, and their products are getting better. So, I mean, am I going to
build my own internal note-taking product to replace Notion? No. But if you look at what Notion's
built, they've sort of moved well beyond-. that. They're really building an internal OS, right? So-
Prefer granola.. I, so we're sort of racing. I mean, this is not the race I want to r- I want to
run, right? No, yeah. I've got, I'm, I'm doing fintech infrastructure. Yes. Leave it, leave it to
though, guys. I'm a granola guy myself. Granola is great. I'm a granola guy. We're, we're, we love
granola. Oh, really? Yeah. Big fan. We love granola.. tried Notion for a while, just couldn't.. I
don't know. Wasn't working for me. So- I like Notion for its core use case. so far it's been
fantastic for me. Yeah. I love Superplane. I'm like Obsidian now. I'm like- Yeah.. okay, we're just,
I like, I like this. This is- You're very AI-pulled. I am way too AI. But I ha- I had to set it up
for co-work, so I've, I've tried to offload as much of my
**[00:43:00]** life and being as I can, but I missed a couple days then of properly updating things, and now I'm
kind of avoiding it 'because it keeps getting angry at me. Fair. Yeah, every time I log back on. So
cute. They sent us back to Opus. No. Well, yeah, they did literally, yeah. miss- did you get a
chance to play around with Claude Opus, actually? Yeah. Did you? Yeah. Oh, God, it was great. Do you
notice much of a difference? yeah. It was some- it wa- it was, it was a real step up. Particularly
in, like, thoughtful deep research knowledge work. I hadn't yet- I didn't, I didn't get to run any
deep research- I didn't-.. before I took- yeah.. a vacation. Sure. I hadn't yet kicked off a full
project or build, but, like, deep research knowledge work, it was just, like, fantastic. Ah, that's
a shame. but it'll, it'll be back. They'll figure it out. Hopefully. yeah, in like a week or two.
What do you make of all that? I think Yeah. I mean, I don't know. It's tough to, it's tough to
parse, right? It is. Like, I don't know, I don't know who's right and wrong and- Yeah.. who said
what in the world. So I'm not going to- It's amazing marketing though. Yeah. I'm not going to..
Yeah, exactly. It is amazing marketing. I'm not, I'm not going to litigate how it happened. No.
Yeah, I don't want you to. But I think it's certainly, again, to go back to that Ernest Shackleton
sort of allegory- yeah.. with the icebreaking, I think that's going to happen more and more. Like,
if you have access to a product like Claude Opus, you're,
**[00:44:00]** like I'm, Anthropic is going to be shipping. They can still use their own product, and they're just
going to keep moving faster and faster and faster. So the, your need to be at the cutting edge is
critical. Yeah. What are you most excited about at the moment in terms of the roadmap? Or obviously
tomorrow we're, we're super excited about that launch, but outside of that even. yeah. Is there
anything in particular that you're, like, kind of obsessed with at the moment? I.. So, obsessed with
the pay by bank product launch. Of course. That's going to, that's going to be- A given. I think
when I look at Saudi Arabia, I feel like we're so early in the journey in Saudi Arabia. Like,
there's, we've just got our license, our Account Information Services that allows us to do- I've
heard a lot from- Probably data.. players that I've been talking to even that are, there's a massive
appetite for- There's a massive appetite. I mean, if you look at the Saudi Arabia market, and you
look at the goals that Saudi Arabia has for its economy and its- Yeah diversification away from oil,
a lot of it is going to come down to can we bring people into the financial system in a structured
kind of way? But at the same time, the economy's very sort of different. I would talk, it's a very
young population, a lot of freelancers- Yeah.. you know, a lot of,
**[00:45:00]** migrants and expats. They're going to need our products to get access to financial services.
They're, you know, to do better underwriting, to do smarter underwriting, to do it at rates that are
meaningful for them, you know. So I'm really passionate about that, and I feel, you know, there are
the obvious players, Ta- Tamara and Tabby that are really pioneering this, but like the rest of the
ecosystem, and Saudi Arabia has a very rich non-bank financial, institution system that does
lending, has not yet used that product. And I, for me, it's like how do we get them to use it? How
do we get them to really achieve the full potential there? So that I'm re- that I'm-. super excited
about. and then Saudi payments. Like we're, we're gearing up. I think they've been teasing it
for a while. I think it's coming soon. Okay. so I hope we'll be the first to market there, and we'll
have a single unified platform across UAE, Saudi Arabia, and hopefully multi rail. So I'm, I'm very
pumped. What does geographic expansion look like beyond that? I know you're like, "Jesus, can we
focus on-" No. That's like, Can we, can we focus on the, these core markets first before, Well,
yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think there's two things. One is these core markets, like
Saudi Arabia, we're less than 1% of the way there. yeah. There's a huge amount that we want to.. We
don't,
**[00:46:00]** we don't want to get too distracted. No. Are we going to go to other markets the same way we entered
the UAE and Saudi Arabia? No. We're not going to do, you know, consultative processes with the
Central Bank- Yeah.. of Egypt and Pakistan and Jordan. Like, that's not, I think that would be- It'd
be pretty drawn out. It'll be drawn out. We've done it. We've learned it, you know? These three
markets, to just sort of pick on them for now, they're like the biggest receiver markets from our-.
from our current markets. A lot of people interface with, many financial products in our markets as
recipients of remittances or some others. So we might find a world where we're in those markets
supporting clients on a payout leg, maybe store value- You'd be brought there as opposed to- Be
brought there. So we might have a, we might have a foothold in some of these markets. and that I'm
excited about, because that is truly what a fintech infrastructure and achieving our vision mission
is going to look like. It's not going to be like just doing the same playbook in different markets.
We're going to approach each market separately. And we're not going to do it today. Like, this is
like right now we're focused on- Yeah, you have your hands full.. Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Well,
Tewfik, thank you so much. Thank you. I really enjoyed this. This was great. Yeah. Give me that.
That was sick. Thank you so much, man. That was awesome. Thank you for having me. Really fun. Yeah,
it was. It was really
**[00:47:00]** fun.