Alaan launches business card with up to 2% cashback

Alaan, a corporate spend-management fintech based in the UAE, has announced the launch of an industry-first business cashback card. The startup previously raised $2.5 million in seed funding and developed a platform that allows businesses to spend via modern corporate cards and automated invoice payments. Customers who use Alaan cards for business will receive up to 2% cash back on their purchases.

Commenting on the launch, Parthi Duraisamy, CEO and Co-Founder of Alaan said: “It’s great to have launched an industry-first business cashback card. Consumers have long had access to such cards in UAE, but that has not been the case for SMEs and corporates. When businesses across the world are trying to conserve cash and cut spending during a recession, we are happy to be supporting UAE businesses to save and take control of their business spending”

Alaan, founded in 2021 by ex-McKinsey employees Parthi Duraisamy and Karun Kurien, aims to transform business expense processing through its platform, which provides employees with business cards to make company purchases and automatically reconciles spending in real-time.

Alaan also provides instant virtual cards for e-commerce transactions, SaaS subscriptions, vendor payments, and in-store purchases. These cards can be set up with daily or monthly spend limits and can be merchant-locked to only be used at specific merchants such as gas stations. Through seamless integration with various accounting solution providers, the platform eliminates the need for expense reports, petty cash, and automates bookkeeping tasks.

Philip Johnston, Co-CEO of Opontia, and an early customer of Alaan remarked “Until now, we have had to rely on debit cards, which have high FX rates and no cashback options. We look forward to scaling with Alaan cards, both to save money and to save precious time for our finance teams, so they can focus on our business instead of month-end manual expense management”  

Alaan is headquartered in Dubai and is rapidly expanding its headcount and scale in multiple Middle Eastern markets.