A conversation with Neem founders, Nadeem Shaikh, Vladimira Briestenska and Naeem Zamindar, about the Financial Wellness vision, the story of founding Neem as well as its unique Embedded Finance model enabling diverse communities across Pakistan.

For those who don’t know anything about Neem. What is your one-liner or an elevator pitch?

Naeem: Neem is a Banking-as-a-Service platform enabling businesses and brands towards Financial Wellness. Neem empowers established businesses and brands in Pakistan to become fintech companies and offers embedded financial services to millions of their underbanked users. Any business can embed Neem’s financial services directly into their products and focus on what really matters: their customers. We’re starting from Pakistan and building for emerging markets, globally.

Your vision statement talks about enabling financial wellness for underbanked communities. Why financial wellness and not the term financial inclusion?

‍Vladimira: I remember it was in 2017 when we were in Ghana in Africa for a financial inclusion conference. We were on the stage with all these other stakeholders who were making waves in the financial inclusion space. And I remember Nadeem saying, “financial inclusion is outdated as a term” and then the shock reaction that followed. For me, those were the very early days when we started looking at the paradigm of financial inclusion in a different light. Financial inclusion has become a narrow concept for the shift happening in the world. For many years, financial inclusion meant giving people and businesses access to a bank account, but when we look at relevant data points, having access to a bank account doesn't necessarily cater for their financial health and financial needs. Too often, people can open a bank account but they either lack proper financial literacy or don’t have access to other financial products. So, we started digging deeper and felt that there is a real need to reboot this paradigm towards what we call financial wellness, which truly drives us at Neem. It’s a multi-layered approach, a Financial Wellness Pyramid, which starts by giving individuals and businesses control through payments; addressing their needs through credit; enabling them to absorb risk by having access to insurance, and at the top of the pyramid is the ability to gain financial freedom through savings and investments. At Neem, we truly believe it’s time to evolve from financial inclusion to financial wellness to fully capture this shift in people’s needs.

‍Naeem: Nadeem said it beautifully at the beginning - the name Neem identifies with who we want to be - we want to be givers, and change-makers, and we want to improve the lives of people around us. From financial inclusion to financial wellness, we’re clearly committed to enabling the lives of our customers financially and that’s where the wellness aspect comes in. It is a very conscious effort. That’s where the synergy of the word Neem and financial wellness comes in.

‍Vladimira: It was the CEO of M-Pesa, the poster child for financial inclusion, who described their own evolution from providing people with the ability to make payments towards much more holistic ‘financial health’ (that’s the term they use). He recognised that it was time to move beyond the basic layer of giving people access to a bank account and focus on enabling full financial lives of people.

Many reports and articles globally describe embedded finance as the future of financial services and a model that will help solve the financial wellness gap. Can you explain what is so unique about this approach?

Nadeem: If we go back 15 or 20 years, the idea of banking was that you walked into your bank’s branch where the manager knew you and everything about you and she or he would offer a custom solution to your financial needs within your community. That was the genesis of banking and community merchant banking started from there. Then, over time, it moved into silos and bureaucracy became a part of the banking experience. It has turned into a mass product that doesn’t take into account your individual needs, but assumes that all the customers are the same and they all need the same products. The evolution that is taking place within the embedded finance space is through the process of democratisation, giving us the ability to go back to the roots of how things used to be. Through embedded finance, we can provide a solution to the customer, which is unique to their needs, whilst avoiding the heavy structures required for customising for each individual - it is possible today thanks to financial technology, fintech. Embedded finance is the idea that instead of giving you a bank account whether you need it or not, we’re going to give you a product as you need it. At the point of experience. When you’re buying your crop, we’ll give you input financing because that’s what you need; as you’re building a house in a certain area or travelling, we’ll give you insurance because that’s what you need. Embedded finance is all about bringing it down to experience as opposed to just being a point of service.

Naeem: In a country like Pakistan, people don’t have a credit history. With the embedded finance model, we rely on various insights from the value chain that allow us to offer the appropriate financial services. Again, we are back at the core of financial wellness. We understand the financial needs from a different dimensions; we’re able to create credit and saving profiles, and insurance profiles. Nowadays, in this age of data, instead of relying on credit rating agencies, we’re able to leverage value chain information - comprehensive data about the farmer - and then integrate this data to fulfil their needs.

Vladimira: We’re also seeing this shift happening across wider emerging markets. The embedded finance movement. It’s inspiring to learn from others on what works and what doesn’t work. Our ambition is to bring this shift to Pakistan and exchange learnings with other players.

Communities seem to have a very important place in your vision and strategy. Why did you choose this community model and what sectors are you serving in Pakistan?

Naeem: The core of our model is embedding Neem into various value chains across diverse communities, whether that’s the agriculture community, the micro-entrepreneurs community, e-commerce as well as mobility community and others. Our B2B2C model is built around the deep relationship with platforms that already have access to those communities and thus, we can financially enable their end-customers and their lives. Leveraging relationships with communities allows us to bring financial services to market at a very accessible and low acquisition cost.

Vladimira: What I have learned to love about this model of working closely with diverse communities, is that you’re leveraging the deep trust those platforms have already built with the end customers. We can amplify their impact by embedding the financial wellness proposition into their value chain. Especially in Pakistan and other emerging economies where the trust towards the traditional financial sector and institutions is quite low. This approach is aligned with our values of how we want to bring about change in the world, through trusted partnerships.

Nadeem: I would add that this kind of model also gives us insights, which means we don’t have to be the agriculture experts or the SME or education experts. We’re the financial services and wellness experts, and the deep understanding of the customers comes from our community partners based on the insights they have about their customer base. That is where the true nature of embedded finance comes in - when embedding your financial wellness platform in the existing community allows you to gain trust and also to scale rapidly.

What specific products do you provide to underserved communities?

Our embedded finance platform consists of two fundamental products.

• Firstly, Banking as a Service, or BaaS platform to offer payments and other financial products like savings, and insurance to our communities.
• Secondly, a Lending platform offering customised products for both consumers and MSMEs.

Our model is centred around low-cost access to the end customer and then increasing the lifetime value of that relationship via cross-selling relevant products. We have taken a very agile and nimble approach to building our platform via strategic partnerships (where appropriate) with other world-class players to enrich our offering. As part of creating a sustainable and healthy long-term business, we aim to be profitable within three years.

Why the name Neem? Where does it come from?

‍Nadeem: Neem is a famous tree from the subcontinent, it’s been around for centuries. I know very few trees that people have written poems about, but they did about Neem. It’s really the ultimate village pharmacy with all the spirituality you can imagine. It’s a tree with an abundance of shade and every part of it can be used for all kinds of purposes. If you’re thinking about building something locally within Pakistan and emerging markets, then here is something that solves so many ailments by just being present.

Vladimira: The idea is to take the goodness, resilience, and strength of the Neem tree and expand it to financial wellness for underserved communities across the emerging world.

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How did the three of you come together to build Neem in Pakistan as co-founders? What is your story?

Nadeem: It is a serendipity - we’ve all met several times as a part of our journey. If you dig deeper into our backgrounds, we talk about financial wellness, but the essence is really about creating meaningful impact. That has been the driving force and we all feel very strongly that the impact can be much greater in emerging markets, especially when it comes to Pakistan. So, our journeys serendipitously led to Vladimira and I working together on projects in Africa as well as trying to create momentum for financial wellness in the UK. That’s where the first inkling started from. And then during our early days in Pakistan, Naeem and I met on our journey, where he told me that we will not be able to create the massive change within a larger corporate organisation. And that’s where all the stars aligned and all 3 of us decided to start on our joint journey as we set up Neem, towards the end of 2019. It’s been a lot of work bringing all of our passions and work experience together, from financial services, technology, diplomacy, and human rights to social impact and investment, leveraging our global knowledge and applying it to emerging markets and especially, Pakistan.

Vladimira: Personally, it has been a pretty unique experience to work with two other co-founders. It does require a lot of work, no doubt. Our strength I believe comes from being united around one core vision, our common values and being diverse whilst complementing each other. I remember when meeting Naeem our first conversation was about spirituality. Connecting on a deeper human level has certainly allowed us to navigate the more difficult moments whilst building Neem. It’s an ongoing conscious effort to build such trust and vulnerability. It has been a lot of fun also, and I’m grateful for having them as my co-founders.

Naeem: To top it all off, the reason why I chose to work with Vladimira and Nadeem is a common set of values and our vision to enable people’s lives. For me, that’s been a vision for a long time and building Neem is an extension of my spiritual journey including finding partners with the same vision, values, and beliefs. I personally did not have a deep fintech background, but we’ve converted our diverse experiences and expertise into a combined strength that also shows up in the team and the culture we’re building. In my experience, great companies are built around this kind of DNA, which has the capacity to be agile, responsive, and listen to the market and each other at the same time.

You mentioned that a Neemer, your team member, called Neem ‘a weird company’. Why and what does that mean?

Vladimira: Oh yes, today I find it to be such a beautiful and strong statement. I’m not sure if Rizwan knew at that time that it would become such a rich description of our ethos and DNA when he said it. It was just very authentic. When explained what he meant by the statement, he was reflecting on a moment of us coming together as a team and connecting on a very basic, very important human element. At Neem, we spend a lot of time asking questions about each other, investing time into getting to know each other personally, beyond our titles. This is a small example that manifests the overall DNA of the company that we’re trying to build. And our weirdness really reflects the uniqueness of who we are and how we show up to the world - the fact that we’re human first and not just on paper, but really in reality. Which for some people might feel new, unconventional and yes, even weird. Again, it comes back to us as founders being clear about the type of business and culture we want to build; where we can be radically honest with each other across the team, we can be authentic and feel safe to share; we challenge each other a lot and ask and receive feedback. Or having regular well-being series, where we talk about our mental and emotional health and I feel it’s been valued and enjoyed by the team. So, that’s our weirdness. As Jim, our CTO said, we should always keep #Neemweird🌿

Have you always thought about building teams and your business in this way?

Nadeem: The way I look at it is that we’ve all been in various organisations, and we’ve had various experiences throughout our professional journeys, but what’s unique is when you wake up excited in the morning, not just about the day-to-day stuff you’re doing, but also about the impact you are creating and all the learnings, the comradery, the kind of people you’re working with; there’s a lot of laughter, banter and smiles that we share amongst each other and a lot of openness and care; all the people working with you know that they’re part of a growing family. There are a lot of theoretical books written about this and it is truly hard to build, but being on this journey is very exciting.

Vladimira: Lastly, there is a concept of a Neem world, which goes beyond our core team and beyond us as founders which is very important for us and it includes all of our friends and families, our investors, our communities and partners, the wider ecosystem. All three of us envisage Neem as a part of something bigger than us and that’s how we look at the Neem world as well. At the end of the day, we’re all contributing to a much bigger vision which we would never be able to solve alone, as just Neem. And that keeps us going and gives us encouragement and inspiration.

If our mission of enabling financial wellness has sparked your interest, join our growing team and check the open positions on our Job Board. We are always looking for remarkable talent, values fit, competence, and people driven by purpose.🌿