Mashreq’s latest embedded finance play is in big-ticket dental and aesthetic financing

Mashreq is getting into digital healthcare financing for the first time through a partnership with online healthcare platform Toothpick, a spokesperson from Mashreq told EnterpriseAM. The embedded financing solution — Neo Credit Loans — will allow customers across Toothpick’s network of aesthetic and dental clinics to access up to AED 150k in financing for treatments and procedures.

How’s it done? Clinics make the financing request from their side through Toothpick’s platform, and Mashreq authenticates the customer and shares a link to complete the application, after which it disburses the funds directly to the clinic.

The partnership with Toothpick is one of many for Mashreq as of late. The lender has partnerships in place with different ecosystem players across its countries of operation — from telecom firms like Etisalat by e& in Egypt, to Toothpick and Thunes, a partnership that allows Mashreq to speed up and make international transfers more affordable. And there’s more to come across different sectors in the coming months, we’re told.

We spoke with Ghazal Al Sakaal, Mashreq’s global head of ecosystems and platform banking at Mashreq, who’s responsible for the bank’s digital strategic partnerships, to dive deeper into what drives their partnership strategy, what goes into their choice of partners, and why they choose to partner up at all.

“As a bank we're doing very well, but we constantly challenge ourselves to stay relevant as customer expectations evolve,” Al Sakaal said. “‘Digital strategic partnerships allow us to meet customers at the point where financial needs arise, embedding services seamlessly into the journeys they are already on,” she noted, adding that the point is also not having to reinvent the wheel but to collaborate.

“The main questions are: How can we enable partners in our ecosystem rather than compete with them? And how can they enable us?” she said. “It’s a [victory], for us and for our partners. We’re extending our own reach into new types of segments, and we’re extending our partners’ reach in a meaningful way,” she added.

The bank is inking partnerships across the world — from Egypt and the UAE to other countries — and across a variety of sectors. The common denominator? They need to be digital first and foremost, Al Sakaal said. “We need to have a similar DNA, and we look for partners where we can genuinely add value to their customer base,” she added. “It’s not about how strong or big the firm is.”

Digital partnerships also help the bank extend its reach into markets with huge underbanked and unbanked populations, with the goal of driving financial inclusion. Working with the second largest telco in Egypt, Etisalat, for example, helped it extend its services across huge swathes of the population who might not hear of, or have access to, Mashreq otherwise.

“Only 20-30% of Egypt is banked, so extending branches all over Egypt is not convenient,” Al Sakaal said. “People are already very happy with their telcos and have gotten used to their apps, so why not embed our services into those apps, allow them to open an account, access financing, and do what they need to do all through their existing Etisalat app,” she added.

That model was replicated across several markets where Mashreq operates. In markets where the bank does not offer retail services, strategic partnerships allow it to extend those services through partner banks and institutions. This applies in India, for example, where the lender also offers digital non-resident accounts through a partner bank, Al Sakaal said.