Dubai conglomerate National Pulse taps Aleta Planet for fintech ambitions
FINTECH Aleta Planet has secured investment from Dubai conglomerate National Pulse, it said on Thursday (Aug 1), which will allow it to make use of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) opening up its financial services.
The investment amount was undisclosed, but a number of joint ventures (JVs) will be set up as part of this investment, noted Ryan Gwee, founder and group chairman of Aleta Planet.
Aleta Planet is a fintech company that focuses on supply and trade financing for perishable products. Currently the company specialises in trade financing for fruits, having built artificial algorithms to track movement and predict scenarios as fruits make their way from the farm to the table.
National Pulse is tapping Aleta Planet as part of UAE’s current strategy to grow digital services, including financial services. The Central Bank of UAE recently announced Open Finance Regulations, which require banks to provide access to customer data, subject to consent, thus opening up the financial-services playing field for fintechs.
“Fintechs have been around for a while, but the trust level has not been high because there was not a lot of data on customers; so we are expecting a lot of change in that area,” said Mohamed Yusuf Adam, vice-president for business and strategy, at National Pulse.
Aleta Planet started out as an issuer and acquirer for Chinese card network Union Pay, with most of its business in China. The fintech encountered National Pulse in the course of helping its portfolio companies enable Wage Protection System (WPS) cards to use the Union Pay network. WPS is an electronic salary transfer system in the UAE, and the cards are used by blue-collar foreign workers to get their salary since they do not qualify for a bank account in the emirate.
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The fintech’s strength in China is also what drew National Pulse to invest in Aleta Planet. Dubai is an export hub in the Middle East, with 60 per cent of Chinese trade in the region going through the Emirati city, said Mohammad Bin Markhan Al Ketbi, founder and group chairman of National Pulse, and the fintech could help capture some of the trade going through.
“Their expertise in handling multi-currency transactions will greatly enhance our upcoming digital solutions, set to revolutionise the international trade and digital economy landscape,” he added.
The investment will be used to build up more services in the trade financing of perishable goods, with seafood as the next segment to train the algorithms. Aleta Planet will also use National Pulse’s networks to expand from the UAE to the rest of the Middle East and Africa, and get “quality time” with local banks in the region, said Gwee.
Besides the JVs in the pipeline, Aleta Planet has a number of partnerships lined up as well, including with government ministries in Dubai. Gwee is looking to secure contracts and fulfil them in the next 12 months to tap total payment volume (TPV) of US$90 billion to US$95 billion in Dubai, with 60 per cent from Chinese re-exporters.
Currently the fintech handles about US$2 billion per annum in TPV across Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong. Gwee expects that number to increase significantly with the pipeline of deals that Aleta Planet has.
“We will have expanded products which will be unique to the Middle East and African markets because there will be a few niche markets we will be able to uncover with National Pulse,” he noted.
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