The Middle East is flourishing and many centuries have been established in Arab countries. Despite having a high per capita income, Middle Eastern countries are not classified as developed countries because of lacking other parameters that come into the standards of a developed nation. That is why, the Middle East is still considered a cluster of developing countries except for a few such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It is worth noting that the UAE has more manpower in the tertiary sector and is known to be a hub for commerce with world-class infrastructure.
Visa And Alaan Joined Forces To Provide Digital Expense Management Solutions
In order to strengthen more, many major companies are collaborating to bring more opportunities in the Middle East. The latest collaboration has happened between two companies identified as Alaan (fastest growing corporate card solution) and Visa (world leader in digital payments. Both countries joined forces to provide digital expense management solutions to UAE and Saudi Arabian businesses. The five-year strategic alliance of the companies united the VisaNet global payment processing network and the Artificial Intelligence (AI) spend management system of Alaan, as stated by both companies in a press release given on Wednesday, March 27.
In a press release, the CEO of Alaan, Parthi Duraisamy states “Together, we are not just offering a spend management solution; we are transforming how businesses in the Middle East manage their finances.” In addition to this, Alaan’s platform is currently used by more than 500 mid-market and enterprise organisations to control their business spend.
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What Is Expense Management and how Alaan works?
Expense management is a bookkeeping system for controlling, tracking, and processing employee expense reimbursements and employee-related corporate credit card transactions. Alaan laid down its foundation in 2022 and raised $2.5M in seed funding. It became the first multi-currency spend management platform in the Middle East enabling SMEs to spend through corporate cards and automated invoice payments.
In August 2022, Alaan introduced a business cash-back card and claimed that it was the first such card released in the UAE. In 2023, UAE-based corporate spend management fintech became the first Middle Eastern company to introduce integrated OpenAI.
It is based in the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC). After providing its facilities in some parts of the Middle Eastern countries, the company is planning to expand its operations in other parts of the Middle East as well as the North Africa (MENA) region in 2024. In this regard, the company has collaborated with Visa to enhance the capabilities of Alaan with real-time checking, streamlined expense management and automated reconciliation, as per the release. Visa and Alaan will also work together on joint marketing initiatives to expedite the adoption of spend management solutions in the business sector of the Middle East. Another vision behind this collaboration is to support economic growth in the region and bring digital transformation to the Middle East.
Saeeda Jaffar, senior vice president and group country manager for GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) at Visa stated in the press release “At Visa, we are committed to fostering strategic partnerships that enhance and secure the payments ecosystem of the region and deliver innovative corporate solutions that support businesses in their digital transformation.”
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