Career banker-turned-entrepreneur sees opportunity in Lebanon's banking sector

While financial tech is a fast growing sector globally, there is still room for growth in Lebanon. While many banks use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools in their daily work, most have yet to take full advantage of data mining and other technologies, particularly in relationship to their retail card portfolio. During a 25-year career as a retail banker in both France and Lebanon, Abdallah Haddad recognized that Lebanon’s retail banking sector was lacking the necessary tools to meet their full potential. He also knew there was a big opportunity to be the first to bring these tools to Lebanon’s banking industry.

A bank’s retail credit card portfolio includes all of its card offerings to customers. The types of credit cards available can be myriad, from prepaid credit cards to cards that earn mileage points, corporate accounts, or retail brand cards. Credit cards were introduced to Lebanon in 1995; in 2013, there were just 600,000 credit cards in circulation. While in the last five years, there has been near 25% growth in the number of credit card users, there is still a huge amount of new customers to be gained by banks. Considering the ubiquity of credit cards in the US and Europe and their increasing use in the developing world, it’s a safe bet that more Lebanese than ever will be signing up for credit cards in the near future.

This potential spurred Haddad to action. He cofounded CPS in 2014 to provide business solutions to banks so as to help them develop their credit card services. Working with a group of advisors and engineers, Haddad created a new banking tool: Card Portfolio Optimizer (CPO), which he hopes will be adopted by banks as a tool to issue new cards, as well as to better understand their current cardholders. Currently in beta testing at one bank, Customer Performance Solutions hopes to roll out full use in the first quarter of 2015.

Original article by Samantha Kaufman

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Career banker-turned-entrepreneur sees opportunity in Lebanon’s banking sector