Abdulaziz Abdulrahman Alsayyari

FOUNDER & CEO, SUKUK CAPITAL

BIO

Abdulaziz Abdulrahman Alsayyari is a fintech leader and the founder of Sukuk Capital. He founded the firm after gaining experience through working at CMA in its strategy department and fintech lab, along with his experience as a director of corporate financing at Manafa Capital.

Can you elaborate on Sukuk Capital’s role, operations, and services in Saudi Arabia?

Sukuk Capital issues sukuk for SMEs and lists them in our platform for investors. We started with Alabeer Hospital before moving on to the education, construction, trading, and events management sectors. Some of the companies we have financed include the organization that sponsored the Formula One event in Jeddah, Interhealth Hospital, and various other companies. We currently have more than 100 companies in our portfolio and have made more than 450 repayment transactions to our investors without any defaults. The unique proposition that differentiates Sukuk Capital is its paperless process of financing; with the digitalization of the process, it only takes 10 days to issue sukuk.

How does Sukuk Capital partner with banks? As Saudi Arabia moves toward fintech, banks are also eager to be part of the change. We currently partner with ANB Bank, which handles the virtual wallets for our investors, which they can transfer their money to from any other bank and thus invest. However, we are keen to expand our partnership with banks in order to reach more customers. For example, the biggest bank in Saudi Arabia has over 10 million clients, and these clients might be able to invest in sukuk directly from their bank account page. We have no problem collaborating with everyone in the market. At the end of the day, we are all working together to boost the local economy.

What was the key factor behind the launch of your application?

Our app is for investors who want to invest in our sukuk opportunities, be they in real estate or other sectors. We launched our app simultaneously with our financing solutions to finance real estate developers, and the goal is to use the app to ensure the best user experience for our investors. In just two weeks, more than 70,000 investors downloaded our app. Sukuk Capital has two types of investors: professional and retail investors. For the former, the average ticket size is about SAR59,000, while the average ticket size for the latter group is around SAR2,000. Since we started, 65% of our investment has come from professional investors and 35% from retail investors. We are looking to cover all possible opportunities and supply the demand in the market.

Can you outline SANID’s mandate?

SANID is a dynamic business environment. Cash management is no longer considered a linear activity but an exclusive platform. We work to offer multiple services at a competitive cost and quality. That is the main guideline for SANID. It also understands the requirements of consumers and designs 360-degree services and projects that offer multi-product services and quality. The main project we offer is the cash solution, that covers all the ATMs and CITs. That project covers between 70% to 80% of our business. Currently Our main customers are banks and dealing with private sector is done through them.

What are your expansion plans at a national level?

We are focused on the domestic market as we still have a long way to go to cover all domestic needs. We currently work with banks and will then turn towards the private sector. SANID’s vision is being a leading financial service. We have good partners in the market, and our objective is to supply our clients with multi-services projects of high efficiency that result in cost savings. We aim to have an estimated ATM market share of 25%.