• Halan UAE teams up with Lean Technologies to fuse open banking with AI lending and boost financial inclusion across the GCC.
• Partnership signed at Money20/20 Riyadh as Halan UAE surpasses 220,000 customers in under a year of operations.
• Deal aligns with UAE’s Open Finance strategy and Saudi’s Vision 2030 to expand SME competitiveness and digital finance adoption.

MNT-Halan

Halan UAE, the Gulf arm of Egypt’s fintech MNT-Halan, partnered with Lean Technologies to expand access to credit across the GCC. The move combines Halan’s AI-driven lending engine with Lean’s open banking infrastructure to unlock new financial opportunities for consumers and SMEs.

The deal was officially signed at Money20/20 Middle East in Riyadh by Omar Ramadan, CEO of Halan GCC, and Mehdi Tazi, COO of Lean.

Despite rapid digital adoption, around 3.7 million people in the UAE remain underbanked. Meanwhile, SMEs which account for over 90% of the country’s businesses still face limited access to formal credit. The partnership aims to tackle  this gap by combining MNT-Halan’s innovative lending solutions with Lean’s open banking infrastructure. 

 “By integrating Lean’s infrastructure with our AI-driven Neuron engine, we are building one of the region’s most advanced lending platforms for financial access.”

Mounir Nakhla, Founder and CEO of MNT-Halan.

Financing Solutions

Since its launch in December 2024, Halan UAE customer base has grown to 220 thousand customers. This is driven by demand for products such as Earned Wage Access, Car Loans, and Salary Lending. Additionally, it plans for the release of several new products later this year.

The collaboration integrates Lean’s secure, regulator-approved access to bank data with MNT-Halan’s proprietary AI-powered credit scoring engine, Neuron. It analyzes customer income, expenses, balances, and repayment history to build a detailed financial profile. It also factors in engagement with in-app tools and identity data, enabling more accurate assessments and financing for customers with little or no credit history. This combination aims to set a new benchmark for using open banking and Ai aiming to deliver faster, more precise credit decisions at scale.