In an exclusive interview, Yair Levy, CEO & Co-founder of Salaryo, discusses the company’s digital initiatives and the effect of UAE-Israel peace treaty on both countries’ economy.
Q: Could you kindly brief us about what Salaryo does and what are the digital initiatives it has taken since its launch?
Salaryo is a FinTech start-up that helps small businesses to get instant financing: loans, working capital and digital banking products.
Since its launch, the company has raised $12 million US dollars in equity and debt, financed hundreds of small businesses in the US and digitally processed over $60M in business loan applications.
Q: The UAE-Israel deal is viewed as a paradigm shift for the Middle East. In your opinion, what effect will this peace treaty have on the economies of both countries?
The peace agreement between the UAE and Israel has the potential to uncover a great synergy between two societies that are very open to technological innovation and complement each other when it comes to the start-up ecosystem: Israel has a great variety of ideas and patents, the UAE has long term vision, resources and experience in financing large international projects. The potential here far exceeds the economic outcomes of previous peace deals of Israel with other countries in the region.
Q: In view of the accelerated digitization of financial services, do you foresee any challenges in drawing funds from UAE and getting them transferred to Israel?
There still are challenges in executing basic banking transactions between the UAE and Israel, including the secure and free transfer of funds. As far as I am aware, some of the largest financial institutions in both countries are already working on this issue, and I hope it will be solved in the near term.
Q: How is Salaryo preparing for the post-pandemic era and what do you hope to achieve in the coming years.
The tag “post-pandemic” is problematic, given that the economic and social effects of COVID-19 are here to stay with us for a long time. We would do better by thinking about adjusting ourselves to the new reality created by the pandemic: increased digitization of products, services and relationships, detachment between employment and income, further dependency of the capital markets on governments and central banks and above all, the rise of micro-businesses and entrepreneurship as the new customer standard in financial services.
These are all processes that started a long time ago, and are now being accelerated by COVID-19. Salaryo was founded with this vision in mind, yet the speed of the recent events is still surprising. Our plan is to continue with our current product roadmap, which expands our digital banking offering beyond credit next year, as we build the Bank of the Future of Work.
