Introduction
Our mission
Our service is an alternative to traditional banks and their products. It's quite difficult for labour migrants coming to the UAE to become a client of a local traditional bank and open their own account or get a card. We want to help expats use the necessary up-to-date financial services and make them easily accessible.
At the same time our AI system helps expats to reach their work-life balance. We all know that’s not easy to find places in a foreign country where you can get the best value for your money. Whether you are a tourist or an expat our service will help you find best restaurants, cinemas, malls, entertainment centers to spend your time with best comfort.
Our mission is to develop a comfortable environment for people so they can manage their finances properly. While helping the UAE financial system, our service will improve the financial literacy of the foreign workers which, as a result, will create a more stable economic layer and teach people how to spend money efficiently.
Our goals
Our main milestone is development of a comprehensive solution for the UAE market and subsequent scaling within the GCC and the MENA countries. One of the main tasks after investing are obtaining a full-fledged banking license and recruiting employees to scale the product.
Region transformation
Since its discovery of oil in the mid 90’s, the country has transformed and become one of the main regional hubs. It has demonstrated significant growth in various sectors of economy, driven by the country’s shift in focus from the hydrocarbon sector. Along with low levels of unemployment, this has led to the influx of workers from diverse nationalities.
The UAE is part of the GCC geographic region and the MENA macro region. The United Arab Emirates is at the top of second five leading countries for migration. It's quite evident that the expatriates outnumber the nationals in the UAE. While the expat population totals around 88.52% i.e. 8.92 million, the nationals only amount to 11.48% i.e. 1.16 million. Most of the expatriate population that comes seeking work settles here permanently.
Population of the United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates has undergone extreme demographic changes over the past decade. With increasing developments, tourism and global recognition of cities in the UAE like Abu Dhabi and Dubai, it's no surprise that the total population has grown by about 6 million people over the past decade. However, the majority of the total population of the UAE are expatriates. Any expatriate who has lived in the UAE for a minimum of 20 years can apply for a citizenship, consequently, the growing total population is mainly due to the growing number of expatriates who become citizens. The high number of immigrants is the reason that the UAE has the world’s highest net migration rate. This becomes evident when looking at the fertility rate, the average rate of children born per fertile woman in a year in the UAE, which has been steadily declining over the last decade.
However, life expectancy, has been increasing over the same time span. It's interesting to note that, despite this increase, total population of the UAE consists mainly of people between the ages of 15 to 64. That's another fact pointing towards expatriates and immigrants contributing to the increasing numbers.
In 2018, the majority of the expatriates residing in the United Arab Emirates had migrated from India. Their population in the UAE had increased to about 2.6 million. The expatriates made up the vast majority of the country’s total population, at around 89 percent as of 2018.
Migration figures
From 2000 to 2020, the net number of migrants in the United Arab Emirates was almost 5.3 mln.
The UAE is one of the top countries worldwide to attract talents from all over the world. In 2018, around 250,000 people migrated from the Philippines to work in the UAE. In comparison, the number of Indonesian workers amounted to less than 600,000 in 2019.
Despite active “Emiratization” policies aimed at replacing migrant workers with natives, especially in sectors such as banking and government. The population of foreign nationals has continuously grown faster than that of native nationals over the last half century: international migrants now represent 88.5% of the total population of the UAE.
Financial inclusion
Financial inclusion refers to the ability of individuals and businesses to have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs in a responsible, non-discriminatory and sustainable way. The connotation of financial inclusion goes beyond access to and the use of financial services and products provided by traditional banks. It entails how financially excluded individuals exploit digital financial services provided by mobile network operators (for example, mobile money) and internet applications (for example, digital wallets). Digital financial services are often geared towards the unbanked populace (including migrants) to attract them to use formal financial services at a low cost, with reduced risks and in a sustainable manner.
Expats have specific needs for financial and other services facing many difficulties and obstacles. They constantly come across many issues that they need to deal with in order to integrate into their new society. Moreover, they have to overcome additional barriers such as the necessity to speak foreign language fluently, to pay large sums of money at once, to go through many steps while opening a banking account, getting a debit card, sending remittances, saving, access to credit programs and getting insurance services, etc. "MYFFIN" analyzes the entire situation of expats’ needs so it can become their number one choice on their way to integrating into society.
Due to the active promotion of financial and technological solutions, the UAE is a significant financial and cultural center of MENA, which additionally allows attracting the best personnel for the development of its own economy.
Expats' challenges and solutions
Current social problems: migrants often faced with challenges of getting post-relocation documents, communal integration, harmonious living, cultural practices, religious beliefs, language barriers.
The list of needs migrants may encounter various needs due to lack of information. They also lack helping services that can solve issues on turnkey basis. For example:
Obtain a residence permit for yourself and your family;
Find medical insurance;
Get a tenancy contract;
Get driver’s license;
Get a PCR;
Access communities;
Real estate service;
Concierge service.
The migration policy of the UAE makes it very easy to obtain an Emirates ID. This document allows you to work and is accepted all over the GCC, which plays a huge roll in migration of people across all neighboring countries.
Getting the information:
Districts for living;
Kindergartens and schools;
Attractions and museums;
Restaurants and cafes;
Discounts and shopping;
Fitness and swimming pools;
Any kind of entertainment.
Current financial problems: Low financial literacy of migrants, unwillingness to adapt to new conditions. The main reason of staying in the UAE is not assimilation and further full-fledged living, but the need to earn money and send it home. In other words, there is an outflow of capital from the country. This has a negative effect - money doesn't go back to the economy and spent on developing neighbouring countries.
The list of tasks that needs to be done the first year after relocation:
Opening a bank account;
Receiving a debit card;
Annual rent payment;
Medical insurance payment;
International transfers;
Payments for utilities;
Furniture.
Our solution is creating a full-fledged interactive application based on AI and banking platform (Bank-as-a-Service) to help increase financial literacy of the population, which will give practical skills in using financial instruments. The service improves clients' skills in budgeting, money management, provides knowledge abour saving money, spendings as well as financial institutions (banks, insurance).
Briefly about the service
We called our service the "MYFFIN", digital companion. Our companion is specially made for expats who have just moved to a new country and are about to start a new life. The digital companion has two main products in one mobile application - social and financial.
Our financial service helps with main financial needs first year after relocation, products will help close the financial essentials. Our social service will help expats adapt to a new society and make the most of their time in a new country, great for tourists who want to get the most positive emotions during their vacation. Our AI speaks excellent human English. It can also help with finding interesting places to visit with your friends and family as well as make recommendations based on your card financial transactions and your psychological portrait.
Digital companion builds a lifestyle platform around expat and his family. There are no annoying advertisements or endless and useless offers that one has no time to even look through. Every client has its own personal profile based on his or her habits and life cycle. We are actively working on developing different spheres, which will be covered by the companion, so every expat can comfortably go through the process of adapting into the new society.
Also our companion will actively build lifestyle platform for tourists from any country in the world, so every tourist can get the most out of their vacation.
Last updated
