The signing ceremony took place on the 31st of January 2020.
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — Alraedah Finance and Geidea Solutions today signed a collaboration agreement for providing Point of Sale (POS) financing to SME’s across the Kingdom. Representing Alraedah Finance, Paul Melotto, Alraedah CEO and Abdulaziz Aldawood, Alraedah Chief Commercial Officer, signed the agreement alongside Geidea Solutions CEO, Mohammad Al Garni and Geidea General Manager, Laurent Dhayer. The Agreement brings together two industry leaders in providing a unique first of a kind financing solution to SME’s. The signing ceremony took place on the 31st of January 2020, at the BIBAN conference hosted by Monshaat, formerly known as The Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Authority, held at the Riyadh Front Conference Grounds, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
POS Financing is one of the most innovative products in alternative business finance. Put simply, it uses the business’s POS terminal to ‘secure’ short term lending — perfect for businesses without many assets, but who have a good volume of credit/debit card transactions every month. SME business owners taking advantage of POS Financing won’t have monthly payments. Instead, repayment is automatic and taken from their daily credit/debit card processing settlements. It’s simple, easy and affordable because repayment is a fixed percentage of POS transactions, and not a fixed Riyal amount. Hence, when POS sales are high, the merchant repays more; when they’re lower, they repay less.
The amount a business can apply for is determined by his/her average credit/debit card sales. Alraedah Finance, by way of its advanced Artificial Intelligence models along with Alraedah’s Financing platform allows it to quickly analyze data and avail funds ranging from SR50,000 to SR500,000 to approved SMEs.
“We have seen other POS financing-related products in the market and they were clearly often one-sided in favor of the Banks so we have tried leveling the playing field to make this product a win-win for both the SME and Financial Institution.”, said Paul Melotto, Alraedah CEO.
“We are excited that Geidea has decided to use Alraedah finance platform to provide financing to their clients through Alraedah platform” said Abdulaziz Aldawood, Alraedah Chief Operating Officer.
“We welcome the opportunity to work with Alraedah to provide a POS financing solution for KSA SME business owners in order for them to address the government mandate and accept card payments which will in turn enhance their business and drive growth. Geidea POS solutions offer a range of options for all SME types and sizes and we can enable the solutions through the POS financing which means there are no barriers to entry for SMEs. Geidea strives to consistently put the merchant at the centre of the product and solution offering and this is another demonstration of our willingness to empower them like never before”, commented Mohammad Al Garni, Geidea CEO.
Laurent Dhaeyer, Geidea, GM GMB explained that Geidea is financing the growth of the SME’s by advancing money against the upcoming financial transactions. The main advantage of this approach is that the amount and time of the reimbursement is perfectly correlated to the SME’s sales, which provides maximum flexibility and optimum cash flow management.
Paul Melotto stated, “We are already working on enhancement to the product based on the feedback of our initial pilot group of SMEs and will continue to provide the Saudi market with new and innovative financing solutions.” “In collaboration with Geidea and alignment with the Kingdom’s vision and aid in the support of a cashless society; Alraedah Finance has subsidized 1000 POS terminals to be distributed kingdom-wide by Geidea to potentially qualifiable micro and small sized merchants enabling them to participate in the POS Financing Program”, added Melotto.