The Dubai-based Policybazaar.ae — established in 2018 — is revolutionizing the financial sector with its innovative, hassle-free, and flexible services. Under the leadership of Neeraj Gupta (CEO), the fintech company has established a strong footprint and won the awards and recognition such as Best Insurtech Startup of the year by Business Tabloid (2021), Best Brands of UAE by Economic Times (2021), and InsurTech Start-Up of the Year – UAE by the Global Insurance and Risk Management Awards 2021 at Wealth & Finance International.

The Notion Behind Establishment Of Policybazaar.ae

In 2008, Yashish Dahiya and Alok Bansal created Policybazaar. Policybazaar, Paisabazaar, and Policybazaar.ae are all owned by PB Fintech (the parent company), led by Yashish as Chairman And Chief Executive Officer. Alok serves as the Executive Vice Chairman of PB Fintech, which controls Policybazaar and Paisabazaar.

Yashish was the MD of ebookers.com, a pan-European online travel distribution company, before starting his entrepreneurial journey. He also worked with Bain & Co. as a management consultant at their London office for a few years. He graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from IIT Delhi. Later he completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Management from IIM Ahmedabad and an MBA from INSEAD. Before joining Policybazaar, Alok worked in various leadership roles with Mahindra Group, iGate Global Solutions, and GE.

After a decade-long journey for the Policybazaar Group, Yashish and Alok chose Dubai as the base for their operations in the UAE. The decision to target the UAE market was made because 27 % of the UAE’s total population of nearly 10 million people is comprised of Indian ex-pats. By launching its new venture, Policybazaar.ae, in March 2018, Policybazaar entered the UAE market. At that time, Neeraj Gupta was promoted to CEO of Policybazaar.ae from his previous position as group leader of the motor insurance business for the flagship brand, Policybazaar.com.

Neeraj worked as a sales consultant for Infosys and Wipro Technologies before joining Policybazaar. He pursued an MBA at NMIMS after earning his B.Tech. During the beta phase, the versatile leader and his team at Policybazaar.ae were able to sell more than 2,000 policies and underwrite premiums totaling INR 6 crore (AED 3 million) thanks to their collaboration with more than 10 insurance partners in the region. Neeraj now envisions influencing public perceptions of finances and social security in the UAE and promoting digital channels as the consumers’ preferred means of managing their personal finances. Additionally, through Policybazaar.ae, he seeks to rejuvenate the Fin-tech ecosystem in the state by offering a robust alternative to traditional methodologies.

Offering End-To-End Insurance Solutions

Policybazaar.ae provides an unbiased comparison of insurance products (life, health, motor, home, and contents insurance) together with round-the-clock customer service. Its clients receive support at every stage of the insurance process, from selecting the best policy to filing paperwork, claim assistance, and renewal. “It is the ingenuity of the concept behind Policybazaar.ae that sets it apart from its competitors and makes it stick with customers and partners alike,” Neeraj proudly asserts.

He and his team take great pride in offering their customers end-to-end insurance solutions in simple, understandable formats. They strive for customer centricity by providing personalized insurance guidance. They also consider it their responsibility to assist insurance buyers and financial product purchasers in understanding all of their options and have the complete knowledge to evaluate each of them safely.

The ability of Policybazaar.ae to adapt searches according to consumer demands ensures that they receive results that are perfectly suited to them. Neeraj says, “The brand works unrelentingly to create efficient solutions to address the dearth of customized life insurance products to help customers get adequate financial protection against Death, Disease, and Disability. PolicyBazaar.ae’s offerings are well-timed with the rapidly increasing demand for digital solutions in the insurance and financial lending sector.”

Furthermore, Neeraj and his team strive to introduce product innovation and believe delivering customer needs is essential. Policybazaar.ae CEO shares, “We work closely with them to provide personalized insurance services to our customers. We have rebuffed the old view of insurance as a one-size-fits-all product. So, we help our insurance partners with data-based insights into each customer’s unique needs.” This helps them more effectively target customers and produce personalized products. And the buyers coming to their platform also get to choose from a wide range of options.

Neeraj states, “Policybazaar.ae had set out its operations in 2018 to be the market leaders in UAE in the financial aggregation space, and we are on that path. In a couple of months, we aim to be the leading financial services provider in the UAE.”

Fin-Tech: Changing The Future Of Money

The financial services sector is changing as a result of fintech. With cashless businesses springing up nearly everywhere, the idea of money itself has already undergone a complete transformation that makes it completely unrecognizable. And one day, money will be completely useless. In the UAE, high mobile penetration rates and increasing competition from fintech companies offer solutions to specialized financial areas such as digital payments, loans, insurance, and wealth management. “We are ourselves working with such change leaders who are bringing in the experience of neo-banking to the UAE,” says Neeraj. These digital-only banking platforms are strengthening the mobile banking platforms, rationalizing branch-based services, and refocusing staff on value-added services rather than repetitive and less-profitable branch operations.

During the pandemic, non-traditional financial services companies, insurance aggregators, etc., also increased their operations throughout the GCC and sped up the transition to online services. Fintech companies, neobanks, and financial apps should collaborate with other financial institutions in order to accomplish shared objectives. In order for UAE to actively establish a fintech ecosystem, the legal framework must also change to make collaboration possible.

Initial Challenges Faced By CEO

Payments and lending are the two largest sectors in the UAE, which are home to a third of all fintech businesses in the Middle East. The main difficulty was dealing with the escalating rivalry from global businesses moving into the Middle East to take advantage of the sizable population there. Neeraj states that the lack of mobile and tech expertise/talent to offer an amazing customer experience using technologies was a little roadblock during the initial phase of their journey.

Focusing On Hassle-Free, Convenient Solutions

A digital-first financial services aggregator, Policybazaar.ae, aims to provide its customers with cutting-edge solutions. Its entire end-to-end insurance purchase process, which is currently available online with top insurance firms (around 35+), is an illustration of this.

Policybazaar.ae and Al Etihad Credit Bureau recently joined forces to implement real-time eligibility checks for credit card applications based on the AECB Credit Score and banks’ approval criteria. The AECB Score Pull product facilitates both ends of the funnel by assisting the consumer in maintaining a record of their credit history and assisting banks in gaining access to a larger pool of credit-worthy customers.

Additionally, Neeraj and his team are developing and offering industry-first products with insurers. For instance, Policybazaar.ae and the Islamic Arab Insurance Company (SALAMA) partnered last week to launch an online comprehensive insurance plan for non-GCC specification cars. With the introduction of this unique product, consumers can easily and conveniently insure and re-insure their luxury cars with a wide range of benefits.

Leveraging AL and ML Technology

According to Neeraj, opportunities are being created for enterprises, the economy, and society due to the acceleration of AI and ML research. These three factors are significant for financial services. Automation, machine learning, and artificial intelligence allow the versatile leader and his team to learn more about their clients and provide them with tailored product recommendations, identify fraudulent acts, help them with quick claim settlement, and more. “We have seen the transition in the way we can approach and service each customer. Also, AI and automation can potentially increase productivity growth manifold,” states Neeraj.

Advice by CEO Neeraj

As an experienced individual and CEO of Policybazaar.ae, Neeraj advises the budding entrepreneurs, “Just keep on doing the right thing”.

However, the industry was not as promising two decades earlier as it looks today. When Joseph Camberato started his company 15 years ago in 2007, it was out of his spare bedroom. He always had an interest in financing and business. Before starting his company, he was doing residential mortgages and had a big interest in moving to the commercial side. A lot of his customers were small business owners and he saw how challenging it was for them to access capital. He literally started with this vision of helping business owners easily access capital and that is how his company, National Business Capital, was born.

The Services

National Business Capital(NBC) is an industry-leading FinTech marketplace offering small business loans and financing. Harnessing the power of leading technology and smart people, it has streamlined the application process to secure over $1 Billion in financing for business owners nationwide.

NBC’s Business Financing Experts work within their 75+ Lender platform to match clients with the right option. Clients can easily access the best low-interest SBA loans, short and long-term loans, business lines of credit, and equipment financing all in one place.

Even though NBC is backed by amazing technology, what differentiates its services is the human touch amidst all the use of technology. Real humans work with clients who are assigned a dedicated Business Finance Advisor. These advisors listen to client story/needs and help match them with the right financial option. This makes them much more reliable than an algorithm setting up the match.

NBC has direct and exclusive lender relationships that have been cultivated for over 15 years. The team understands the lenders’ policies and guidelines. This means better rates and terms for their clients and faster approvals. 

 Rising Above Challenges

Joseph had to face the same challenges all business owners face regarding people, processes, and getting all to work in sync. And also like everyone else, he had some unique challenges. There are many life experiences that shaped him, but one that stands out is that nothing was ever given to him. He has always worked very hard from an extremely young age and always wanted to work to make money. He has gone through three recessions – the dot-com bust, he started his company right before the Great Recession, there were many lessons learned from here, and those lessons prepared him for the third major pullback in the economy, the covid-19 pandemic. “Going through these three serious economic events has really been the best thing to happen to me and has only made me stronger, although you never really feel that way going through them” shares Joseph.

On the same note, he also shares this advice for emerging entrepreneurs, “Don’t give up. It’s not easy for anyone at the beginning and even seasoned entrepreneurs. So many entrepreneurs give up too fast. It takes a solid 5-7 years to grow a new business. Also remember, If you’re not growing, you’re dying.”

The Future of Money

Joseph observes that in the beginning when fintech was born, it was the banks vs fintech. Today, one can see how banks understand that fintech is needed in their own businesses and the start of collaborations is happening. “I think that there’s a lot of ways that banks and fintech can work together to win more market share, but more

importantly better serve our customers. The reality is as a small business owner, you need banks and you need the speed of fintech. It’s not one or the other – there is a time and a place for both,” he says.

 Fintech, therefore, is changing the shape and future of money. Technology has made it easy for people to do a number of things. As far as money is concerned, it has become very easy for people to access business and personal loans and to do it very quickly and easily. Its also become very easy for lenders to capture clients nationally instead of just locally. “I really think it’s just the beginning of fintech and there is so much more innovation to come. You have to constantly keep up with the change, build and implement. There is really no stopping to this, your tech build doesn’t end.”

 What’s Next for NBC?

Since its inception, National Business Capital has handled over 10,000 financing transactions. Over $1 Billion have been funded to small to medium size businesses. It has also been ranked as the #1 Top Workplace 3 years in a row and donated 100,000 meals to Feeding America. The team at NBC works with all industries and all revenue sizes all across the country. They are constantly bringing on new financial products to serve small to medium size businesses. They believe that with technology like automation and AI it has been easy to remove repeatable redundant tasks so people can focus on things that take real human brainpower. “We couldn’t be more excited about the future and the continued growth. I’ve personally been at this 15 years and feel like I’m just getting started,” concludes Joseph.

To retain their existing and mostly loyal customers, and to gain new ones, especially millennials, Retailers have to offer services where customers choose to want them, both through online and offline channels, with zero friction while paying for goods or being eligible for rewards and offers. This is where Epipoli, an innovative Retail Fintech company established by Gaetano Giannetto is setting the standards for next generation retail platforms in Europe, and across the world. Epipoli enables retailers offer their customers a slew of digital products and services from third party service providers all integrated on the Epipoli platform and delivered through a retailer branded mobile application. The mobile application enables multiple payment methods, rewards, coupons, mobile checkout, and the customer’s entire purchase experience, both online and offline. The platform bears inspiration from the best of Asian mobile Super Apps like WeChat, Alipay and Grab and is developed in collaboration with KargoCard, a company with operations in Asia who powers the payments experience for top tier convenience stores like 7 Eleven and Lawson in Asia. The KargoCard platform processes over $2.5 billion in annual gross merchandise value across 250M customers across China, Japan and other markets in Asia.

One-Of-Its-Kind Italian- Based Company

The company’s name Epipoli derives from the Greek word epi-polis, which means “upper town,” is also the name of the Syracuse neighborhood where Archimedes’ Castle was built. Founded in Italy, the innovative fintech company is the market leader in retail payments and engagement solutions. In Italy, it was the first company to offer prepaid Mastercard and gift cards, a business it soon expanded across several other countries in Europe. Epipoli aims to preserve its uniqueness in the European market by combining cutting-edge technology paired with deep retail expertise and highly curated consumer experiences. Epipoli recognized the power of payment services delivered at point-of-sale to retail customers, as a powerful engagement and retention tool for the Retailer as well as a low-cost acquisition channel for banks and financial service providers. The Epipoli platform and service was built around this hypothesis of demystifying fintech for the retail customer and delivering these services seamlessly as part of the Retailers branding.

Epipoli operates two strategic business line in complete concert with each other.

• Wallet As a Service – WaaS

Epipoli provides a Retailer branded mobile application which offers payments, rewards, coupons, ticketing and travel services, FX and even crypto currencies all integrated with the retailer’s suite of core retail services.

• Platform As a Service – PaaS

Epipoli provides a uniquely integrated, cloud native, API first platform for Retailers to provide a compendium of services on a single stack, which enable engagement and digital solutions delivered across physical stores as well as online, as a compelling and profitable retail category. For third party service providers, integrating their services to the Epipoli platform is very lucrative as it extends their services to a strong network made up of 400 Partners at more than 70,000 points of sale across Europe reaching more than 4 million customers.

“In the role of category captain of this innovative family of products, Epipoli manages the assortment of the Gift Cards for Engagement, Incentives and in the stores of the network, on which Epipoli has implemented a dedicated display with the most important local and international brands offering a comprehensive assortment from “A” to “Z”, from Amazon to Zalando,” says Gaetano, speaking about the Epipoli retail gift card mall program.

The innovative fintech company is happy to serve over 200 corporations and 10.000 SMEs from various industries, including BNP Paribas, Bridgestone, Carrier, Carrefour, Coca-Cola, Electrolux, Esselunga, Hype, L’Oreal, Nestlè, Samsung, SPAR, Vodafone, Xiaomi and many others.

Meet The Multi-Talented Leader

Gaetano began his career at Procter & Gamble in the sales and merchandising division after serving as an artillery lieutenant in NATO. He was one of the “fathers” of Spaceman, the revolutionary planogramming and category management platform launched in more than 18 nations worldwide in 1988. The innovative leader worked as Managing Partner and then Vice President Industry Food & Retailing EMEA when Spaceman was sold to Nielsen in 1991.

He joined NCR Corporation in 1998 and was appointed vice president of EMEA and AustralAsia. Gaetano’s 20 years of professional experience in the international retail industry in Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States supported the intuition that led him to start Epipoli in 2000, one of the top global Fintech companies of which he is today President.

Passionate about multi-media, the multi-talented leader created and published “Conquering the new consumer – the Category Management guide,” the first digital book ever realized about retailing, and “Like free radicals: marketing without patterns,” which focuses on consumer behaviors and social changes.

Facing Challenges Head-on

Two essential components of Epipoli’s DNA are innovation and execution. Gaetano’s tenure at P&G taught him the essential strategies for breaking into markets and upsetting the status quo. “In Italy, it is not easy to change the way of doing as Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, the author of “Il Gattopardo” published in 1958, because “changing everything in order to change nothing” is one of the typical behaviors,” says Gaetano.

It was pretty difficult to launch gift cards in Italy in 2006. Gaetano recalls, “To convince content partners and retailers to join this revolution for retailers, Epipoli developed a “demonstration case incorporating a mini display with US gift cards” to get every retailer aware of the project, and almost every company accepted the idea: Epipoli didn’t introduce the gift cards but a new retail category. Gifts cannot be explicit in value in Italian etiquette and common sense; very different from US pragmatism.” Since then, even though many of the US giants have expanded the gift card category across Europe, MyGiftCard is how the category is known; just as Nutella means chocolate cream.

Epipoli has been bold with product innovation, even when there has been market resistance in the early days of launch. It took three years to implement the Mastercard prepaid debit card that Epipoli had conceived in 2009. What a shock it was for customers to buy a prepaid Mastercard product   in a store, and ten years later, Epipoli Prepaid Card was chosen as the top financial services product sold in grocery stores!

Offering Solutions To Different Target Audiences

As the Founder of Epipoli, Gaetano says, “We are a company with an incredibly broad target audience.” As a retail payments platform, the company is B2B2C player with services at 3rd party digital channels, and through the shelves of large-scale retailers. As an engagement company, it provides B2B2C professional services to Corporations to acquire, engage and retain their customers. As a branded currency issuer, Epipoli is a strong international player in the B2B market, increasing this position also through the complete acquisition of Reward, a company that is specialized in gamification and incentive solutions to interact with employees and customers in a smarter and more attracting way.

Future Goals

Epipoli has consistently made investments over the past three years to accelerate its role as a force behind demystifying fintech and democratizing access to financial services. Epipoli has extended its customer base to over 42 countries.  Partnering with KargoCard, Epipoli’s reach now extends across all of Europe and Asia and soon in the USA. There are other new projects in the works, and in the next three years, Epipoli plans to generate an equivalent amount of revenue across Americas, Europe, and Asia. In order to do this, Gaetano and his team are preparing a fresh investment round to continue the M&A program and spread the Italian method across many other countries.

A Piece of Advice from CEO Gaetano

As a seasoned entrepreneur, Gaetano advice to budding entrepreneur, “Never give up is my mantra, because you learn more from mistakes and business scarves than from successes. It is not important how many times you fail, you must have the desire to get up having in mind that nothing come without Sacrifice, Resolution, Focus and Ethics.”