KARACHI: Haball, the B2B Islamic fintech, in partnership with Meezan Bank has launched its digital lending platform – “Wisaaq” here on Wednesday.
In the first phase, the 550 distributors of Coca-Cola Beverages would be able to finance their inventory through the Meezan Bank while using the fintech’s platform Wisaaq.
This was stated at an event titled ‘Cashless Supply Chain’, organized by Haball and Meezan Bank here at a local hotel.
“We are confident that Haball’s partnership with Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan will help the FMCG giant increase its sales by 30-40%,” CEO of Haball Omer Bin Ahsan told Business Recorder on the sidelines of the event.
He said Coca-Cola would be the first one to use the financial services of Haball while some 22 entities are currently using the digital platform for payments.
Speaking on the occasion, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Deputy Governor Dr Inayat Hussain said most mid-size enterprises stay away from banking financing because they do not want to pay taxes.
He said Wisaaq is covering the whole payments cycle, offering cross selling opportunities to small and medium size enterprises (SMEs), adding that the fintech platform has the potential to cover the payment cycle of the entire supply-chain.
The CFO of Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan, Erdi Kursunoglu, said his company sees huge potential in Pakistan. He said arrangement with Wisaaq would help increase the sales of the beverages company.
He said Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan is a subsidiary of Coca-Cola Içecek, which is the second biggest market behind Turkey and 10th biggest for Coca-Cola Global.
He said digital transformation would ultimately leads to business transformation.
“The biggest winner of the cashless supply chain arrangements would be the national exchequer,” he added.
Meezan Bank President and CEO Irfan Siddiqui said many distributors refrain from using conventional banking for financing because it does not conform to their beliefs.
“Surveys conducted by the SBP clearly reveal that the market trend is towards Islamic banking,” he said.
Meezan Bank SEVP and General Manager-Commercial Banking Syed Tanveer Hussain said Haball is first digital financing platform in the country.
He said SMEs in Pakistan mainly deal in cash as they are undocumented.
In their presentation Saqib Bashir and Ahsan Amjad highlighted that Haball has reduced the whole financing process to 15 seconds.
They said Haball is a scalable and instant financing system because the platform has real-time inventory data.
They also mentioned that settlement of financing would also be made through the fintech platform.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022