Vemi Money – Banking on an Ethical Future
With consumers becoming ever more discerning about where they shop, eat and more broadly spend their money – the financial services sector is no more insulated from these trends than any other. Service providers in various industries have now long understood the need to show how their products and services align with their customers’ values and identity. This goes beyond the science of marketing and brand development – with people across society now concerned with how they are personally impacting climate change and ethical practice in the world with where they spend their money.
In addition, Muslims and others have had to compromise on their faith-based beliefs around finance and banking when engaging with mainstream retail banks. This extends beyond just the well-known prohibition on interest, and into the ethics of Islamic finance and banking. It is in the confluence of these two problems and trends that Vemi Money – part of the Vemi Ventures Group – is banking on an ethically discerning consumer base that will only ever increase in the coming years.
Building a digital ethical banking platform is no small feat, but it is impressive how much progress Vemi Money CEO Shahzad Enver and his growing team have made in just the last 12 months. They have gone from a team of one to over 30, and with an A-list exec team made up of industry experts who have joined with a drive to shake the sector up. The team has a combined sector experience of over 300 years in 20 different countries coming from organisations such as Recognise Bank, Go Henry, Starling Bank, Nomo, Barclays, and Direct Line Group. It is a testament to the pull of Vemi that they have managed to attract such a high calibre. The desire to make a difference in the world and create social impact is clearly not confined to consumers making spending decisions, but as shown here, also finance professionals seeking to plough their efforts into a project they think will do good in the world. The focus at the moment is on lifting the lid on what happens under the hood in banks – explaining and showing what ethical banking, which is fair and transparent, could mean in practice.
Vemi Money aspires to be at the cutting edge of both what it means to provide a digital experience to customers as well as an ethical one that conforms to the tenets of Islamic finance. While digital banks and ethical banks both exist, combining the two without compromising on either aspect is a radical and novel proposition in the market. The technological development is ambitious, featuring a built-in capability to flexibly tailor products for customers, building shariah-compliant products in the core and a design intended for global application. It can also intelligently scale back energy consumption on demand to reduce its carbon footprint. Being entirely cloud-based from launch, Vemi Money will be a pioneering entity in the Islamic Finance sector.
During a flagship event celebrating a move to new offices, Enver was able to announce the milestones they have achieved in their journey towards becoming an operational and licensed retail bank. The news will come as a boon to investors who have backed the project since its inception, with the driving principle of tackling the problem of financial exclusion bringing the team to where it is now and motivating it to keep up the pace.
Speaking exclusively to City PM, Enver said, “I’m incredibly proud of the team we have brought together. The wealth of expertise that everyone brings is only matched by their commitment to the purpose we have here at Vemi: to solve problems and make lives better. We’ve made great progress and I’m even more excited about what the next phase holds. Our aim is to remove the values and faith-based trade-off that many people have to make when engaging with mainstream retail banks and who want to see how their money is being used to benefit society while still providing a fair and competitive return.”
The first products that Vemi Money will aim to launch will help ethically minded consumers and Muslims in the UK help save and buy homes, but there is still work to do before they are in the position to offer these to market. In the meantime, the product development team, led by CPO Rofiya Hussain, are looking to engage with potential customers to hone in on solving the problems real people face. You can join one of these research panels by clicking here, and join the waitlist to be one of the first to test out products as they are released here.