Generation Start-up: how neobank Zywa aims to improve Gen Z’s money skills – The National

Generation Start-up: how neobank Zywa aims to improve Gen Z’s money skills – The National

When Alok Kumar noticed his 15-year-old brother experiencing the same struggles he faced a decade ago when using cash or his parent’s credit card while growing up in Saudi Arabia, he decided to solve the problem by launching a teenager-focused neobank.

He teamed up with Nuha Hashem — whom he met during his university days in Saudi Arabia — last year to launch Zywa, one of the first teenager-focused neobanks in the Middle East and North Africa that offers Generation Z access to digital payments and enables them to go cashless.

“It did not make sense to us that nothing had changed in a decade, so we decided to solve the problem ourselves 14 months ago,” says Ms Hashem, who has a degree in electrical engineering from Ain Shams University in Egypt and a master's from a university in Turkey.