Financial literacy start-up Verity has closed an $800,000 pre-seed round, with backing from regional venture capital firms including Wamda, VentureSouq, and Beyond Capital.
Headquartered in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Verity plans to launch in the UAE later this year, with an expansion across the Middle East and North Africa intended for 2022.
The platform centres on a fintech mobile app that is aimed at teaching young people and teenagers core money management skills including how to spend responsibly and save while under full parental supervision.
The company’s rapid expansion plans will be the main focus of its pre-seed funding.
“The funding will mainly be used to finalise the tech build so we can get the Verity app launched as soon as possible, and to fuel our ongoing awareness-raising campaigns around the importance of financial literacy,” Verity co-founder Kamal Al-Samarrai told Arabian Business.
“All said and done, our focus is really on proving to our early investors, and future investors, what we have always believed – that the concept of a family banking and financial literacy app for the MENA region can be as successful as it has been in other parts of the world,” Al-Samarrai added.
Through the app, parents are able to top up their child’s account, set spending limits, and initiate a reward system, with kids able to earn additional funds after completing specific chores and tasks. The platform comes with a personalised pre-paid debit card, which can be used to make purchases online and in stores. All transactions are monitored by the child’s parents, allowing them to adjust the platform as needed.
Verity has been designed with a Middle East audience in mind and will be available in both English and Arabic, with plans in place to introduce other languages down the line.
“Having a team that is well-versed with the regional banking sector and has worked extensively on financial literacy concepts in the past means we know exactly what the pain points are for parents in the Middle East, and the appropriate solutions to tackle them. We’ve also closely studied how best to engage and enable the youth in regional markets to make them more financially resilient,” co-founder Omar Al Sharif said.
Financial literacy is a broad term which refers to the ability to understand financial skills, such as budgeting, investing, and saving. Such skills have often been overlooked, with Verity co-founder Dina Shoman noting that almost two-thirds of adults globally are financially illiterate, according to S&P Global’s Financial Literacy Survey.
“Financial literacy is a basic life skill that everyone should have access to and it’s been proven that children can start learning basic concepts from as young as four years of age, with financial behaviours and attitudes being formed by the age of seven,” Shoman explained.
“Since this is a topic that is rarely comprehensively taught in schools, there is an even bigger responsibility on parents to take the lead and build these lessons into their daily interactions with their children, because what they learn today will build the foundation for the behaviors they demonstrate into adulthood,” she concluded.
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