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Hello, I'm Rupert Hog, the managing
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editor of City AM and I'm here with
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Abdullah, the co-founder of Alif Bank at
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the Growth 500 Awards sponsored by
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Business Leader. Hello. Thank you for
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Hi. Thank you. Thank you. So,
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congratulations on being here tonight.
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Can you just give us a brief overview of
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what your business does? Absolutely. So,
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Alif is a challenger bank. It's a it's a
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neo bank in Central Asia. We uh we
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started in 2014 as a small team, just
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three people uh with a small license uh
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to provide finance in in in a certain
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way, in an Islamic way. That's our own
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principles. And we've grown since 2014
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to today to become a full-fledged bank.
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We got our license in 2020. Within a
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year, we were voted as the most trusted
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bank in the country. Today, we have
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1,400 employees in three countries,
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Tajikistan, Usbekistan, and we're
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starting in Pakistan. We are serving 4
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and a.5 million customers. And
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thankfully, the growth has been really
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skyrocketing in the last four years. We
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grew 5x in terms of our revenue, about
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30x in terms of our digital transactions
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and all the volume of operations in the
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in the company. So what are you most
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excited about then in the world of
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fintech and finance like that? Me
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personally um look I mean Alif has done
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amazing. We've got a great team uh the
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leadership uh and and is moving fast and
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I've uh moved to the UK to expand our
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Uh and and I'm excited about doing
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something in the UK to build an Islamic
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bank in the UK. which would serve
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customers both in the UK and hopefully
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in the future globally either out of the
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UK or growing exponentially, you know,
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abroad. So, uh that's what I'm excited
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about. And those types of alternative
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finance in the UK, um is that one of the
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reasons why you're most excited about
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being here? Yeah. So according to
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official statistics, Muslims in the UK
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are five times more likely to be
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unbanked and generally um there isn't
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the option there isn't availability of
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financial products that align with the
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with the with the principles of of of of
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uh of Islam. And I we want to build
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services which are not only halal and
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open to everyone. We already have
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customers across both Muslims,
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non-Muslims, but we also want them the
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services to be more competitive, more
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innovative, more user friendly than the
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conventional alternatives. And the
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reason we started in the car finance
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market as you know covering the industry
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there's so many problems and this user
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journey that could be so much more
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transparent so much easier faster and
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and less expensive and we're here to do
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that. Yeah I think everyone would be
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interested to know how big is this
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market that you're looking at. I I
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imagine it's quite significant. So look
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we are providing Islamic
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currently Islamic car finance products.
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We're building uh we we want to become a
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bank here in the UK. The population of
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Muslims has been growing. Uh as I said
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we're open to everyone but of course
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primarily the the the way we build the
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product. It's it's uh likely to be much
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more appealing to Muslims. Um and
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currently the population of Muslims in
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the UK is about 8%. Okay. However, the
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Islamic banking assets in the UK, what
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would you guess is the proportion? 10
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20%. No, it's 0.1%ish
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of the total banking and finance. It's
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But there's potential for much more.
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Exactly. So the compared to compared to
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what today Islamic banking and finance
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is in the UK compared to what the
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potential is compared to how how many
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people are and increasingly people want
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halal options just like think about this
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like halal food. Yeah. Back in the day
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50 70 years ago there wasn't halal food
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and and people had to sacrifice. they
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had to use conventional for that to go
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and and eat sort of or they had to just
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switch to vegetarian right but
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increasingly as halal food became
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available became cheaper even although
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even today halal food is slightly more
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expensive halal meat is roughly 10 to
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20% more expensive but you know even
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today 90% of Muslims are actually
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switched to halal meat because of the
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availability so we want to make it
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available and we want it to be not more
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expensive If you want it to be on par or
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better priced and more convenient and by
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default when something is provided in a
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Sharia compliant in an Islamic finance
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way it takes care of customer interests
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it transparent by default. The regulator
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of course in the UK wants to make sure
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all the providers of financial services
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are ethical. They think of good outcomes
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for customers. They think of
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transparency. Uh and all of this is
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built in by default in Islamic finance.
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For example, just one single example,
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there are no penalties. Yeah, there are
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no penalties whatsoever. So when we
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choose customer, we want to make sure
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that it's affordable for them, that it
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makes sense for them. It's the right
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thing for them. Whether whether or not
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at that at that very moment, whether or
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believes herself or himself that that's
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the right thing, we we want to be by
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their side to help them make the
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decision. Yeah. Okay. Well, great.
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That's Thank you very much for your time
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today. My pleasure. Thank you so much.
