Cashee, a FinTech digital banking startup based in the United Arab Emirates, raised $3 million in a Series A funding round led by Arab National Bank (anb).

This investment will support Cashee in rolling out its innovative banking and knowledge solutions, applications, and products while expanding to the Saudi market, to be available to the younger generations and teens.

“The strategic partnership agreement with Cashee is an additional step on the bank’s digital transformation journey that aims to empower bank initiatives in the field of financial technology and digital banking and to expand the scope of financial inclusion. The partnership between anb and Cashee aims to develop the first banking application of its kind in Saudi Arabia that promotes the financial culture among Saudi youth, in a way that will encourage savings, and financial literacy, as a contribution from the bank to achieving one of the primary goals of Vision 2030,” Aiedh AlZahrani, anb’s Chief Operating Officer and Head of Retail Banking Group, commented.

This will solidify ANB’s banking awareness activities targeting youth and expand the scope of financial knowledge and inclusion, capitalizing on Cashee’s financial and educational platforms catered to youth.

“The capital raised in our series A will be used to fund our expansion plans in KSA. ANB’s investment as a large bank represents a landmark transaction in the sense that banks are investing directly in FinTechs. This investment is part of an ambitious regional expansion plan into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and will foster mutual and constructive cooperation to serve the Saudi youth in the best possible way,” Brad Whittfield, Co-Founder of Cashee added in his conversation with us.

Cashee is also currently in the process of establishing its office in Egypt with plans to enter Egypt in 2023.

The startup was founded in 2020 to support financial knowledge and inclusion for youth in the MENA region, through providing smart applications for banking services, digital knowledge platforms for education technology, financial culture, foundations of financial management, and saving for the younger generations.

“The inspiration came from a significant gap in the market – youth have been historically restricted from opening their own bank account. As a result, there is a low level of financial literacy in the region which needs to be addressed. So we wanted to fill the gap in the market while educating the youth on all things “youth money”. The positive social impact is an important driving force for us,” Whittfield talked to us about the story behind finding Cashee.