The country of Jordan is geographically located between the south of Syria, the west of Iraq, northwest of Saudi Arabia and the east of Israel and the West Bank. Its capital and largest city, Amman, is home to its own fintech and wider financial services industry. One of those companies is called Whyise, co-founded by Reem Khouri and Ayad Taher in 2018. In the spring of 2019, the World Economic Forum selected Whyise as one of the 100 Arab start-ups shaping the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
What is Whyise? The startup provides organisations with an impact analytics solution to efficiently deploy their resources, make decisions based on evidence and exponentially multiply their impact. Their Impact Analytics Solution allows organisations to aggregate their data in real-time, align their impact with international standards (such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the IFC Environmental Social and Governance Standards etc.) to analyse results for evidence-based decision-making and insights.
The company is quoted as saying: “We aim to support you in capturing your economic, social and environmental performance to understand the variables that drive your results for exponential impact. Our system allows higher transparency, compliance with governance standards, streamlining of reporting, which ultimately will lower cost of impact.”
JOINING AHLI BANK’S AHLI FINTECH
Ahli Bank is one of the Kingdom of Jordan’s leading banking institutions. Established in 1955 as the first national bank in East Jordan, the bank played a pivotal role in the growth and evolution of the country’s financial sector, employing its ambitious vision to drive the banking industry forward, according to its website. Ahli Bank established the Ahli Fintech company in August 2017, making it the first fintech company fully-owned by a licensed bank in Jordan, with a vision of Ahli Fintech to promote the fintech ecosystem and establish itself as a regional hub for fintech innovation. Ahli Bank is a financial technology and innovation accelerator, and venture-studio arm. They revealed recently that, in October 2019, it selected Whyise Inc. among a few startups to participate in the first wave of the 6-month Ahli Fintech Seed Accelerator program.
As of April this year, Ahli Fintech invested $200,000 in Whyise, which was matched by the Innovative Startups and SMEs Fund (ISSF). Throughout the program, Whyise was able to validate their business model and demonstrate traction and growth in revenues, clients, content on its platform and exported its services outside of Jordan, Overall, the startup has raised a total of USD$675,000, with other participating investors including Wamda Capital, Beyond Capital and angel investors Najla Baeshen and AbdulMajeed Shoman.
Rami Al Karmi, the CEO of Ahli Fintech, said, “Whyise, brings the power of AI and machine learning at the disposal of organisation interested in measuring their impact on stakeholders and analysing their data for evidence-based decision making. That, along with the amazing team, made the decision to invest in Whyise and accelerate its growth one that is aligned with our investment thesis, where we are focused on establishing Jordan as a regional hub for globally relevant fintech innovations.”
Commenting on the investment, Laith Al-Qassem, the Chief Executive Officer of ISSF, said, “We at ISSF believe in adopting a data driven approach to promote and strengthen Jordan’s entrepreneurship ecosystem. Whyise is a solution that is very relevant to the future of our economy and the global economy, post covid-19, where sustainability is at its epicenter. When we build sustainable businesses, we are building resilient economies.”
Similar to Whyise, fintech talent through Ahli Fintech can benefit through various activities and initiatives, including fintech events, conferences, workshops and training sessions. Ahli Fintech has the opportunity for innovators to find solutions via its Ahli Sandbox environment and its wider support network. Without a doubt there will be further future stars such as Whyise who will create new future fintech innovations in Jordan.
