What was it about that company specifically? That it was established in 2015 and it was a billion dollars in 2017.
We used to collect five pounds from every customer, ten pounds from every customer, just as a token that they're acknowledging their debt. And that was a brilliant, brilliant idea. I didn't genuinely believe in the future of ride-hailing.
Very risky, Mounir, because you had people throwing money at you to continue doing something that you didn't think was worthwhile anymore.
I knew I couldn't pursue a mirage.
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Hi, I'm Malak Fouad, and welcome to What I Did Next from A&T Media, where I sit down with a new guest each month and we take a deep dive into their lives' most pivotal moments. Today, I'm joined by entrepreneur Mounir Nakhla. Mounir is the founder and CEO of MNT Halan, Egypt's first unicorn and a leading fintech company in the region. The company has served over 8 million customers and recently expanded into Turkey, the UAE and Pakistan. Mounir began his career working with his uncle, Dr. Mounir Neamatalla. Many of you will remember that Dr. Mounir was a guest on What I Did Next when he joined me last year, and he talked proudly about his nephew. Mounir went on to launch his first company in 2010, which made him realize the true potential of microfinancing and unlocking economic potential for the unbanked and underbanked in emerging markets. This is what led him to co-found MNT Halan in 2021 with Ahmed Mohsen. Mounir is an old friend, and I always knew that he was incredibly disciplined and routine-based. And I wasn't at all surprised to see this translate into his CEO role as well. Mounir's career path has shown perseverance and a willingness to take calculated risks, trusting his instinct even when others counsel him otherwise. All these qualities have made MNT Halan a massive regional success story and mean that the business community will continue to watch the company and Mounir closely for many years. You've done a lot of interviews in the last couple of years specifically where you've gone into a lot of detail about how Halan started, what your origin story is. But I'd like you to give a bit of a synopsis on just your sort of your childhood. You were in school in Egypt and then you went to university also here? And then you did a master's in London, right?
No, no, no. I went to school here, an Alson school and then I went to the UK. I did my A-levels. I went to a tutorial college in Oxford.
I didn't know that. You did your A-levels there.
I did my A-levels in Oxford. It sounds really cool when I say Oxford, the A-levels. It was just the A-levels. Just some A-level college. It was an A-level college.
But why didn't you finish here?
I did finish here. I could have gone to AUC, but in order to go to a university in the UK, I needed to do A-levels.
And why was that a track that you wanted to pursue? Why didn't you...
Because everyone of our generation did AUC. I have to admit, it must have been my mother. And she really pushed me to study abroad. And it's probably because of her brother who studied in the US in the 70s.
They encouraged you to do that.
They encouraged me to do that.
It was a brilliant call. It was a very risky call.
You're a young, teenager, exposed to all sorts of things. Naughty things. And very naughty things and saved by the bell.
Well, you mentioned your uncle. So your uncle, of course, is an alumni of my show, an old family friend. And I know that for you, he's a huge role model. And tell me about his influence on you, because I know that his line of work with the ecology and environment and microfinance, you began working with him. And that was an area you thought you'd be staying in. But tell me about him as an influence on you personally.
My uncle is a very special person who's marked my life from the onset. So when I was still doing my undergraduate dissertation, he's the one who pushed me to do it on the impact of microfinance. And I scored really well on that dissertation. And he's the one who pushed me to travel Egypt, governorates, see microfinance institutions. I also spent about seven, eight years working very closely with him in Siwa eco-lodge, where I got to know him extremely well. And a lot of the values he has in life have inspired me. So when I did my master's degree, I did it in environment and development and when I went to him I said, I want to do it in environment. And he said, no, no, no, what environment? You should also consider development. And that's what gave me a deeper perspective on the bottom of the pyramid in different countries, how they act, how they react and it's what really brought me into the field of microfinance.
And did you think when you finished your degree, you began working with him, didn't you? Did you think that that would be your path? That you'd be with him and that you'd be within his business?
So it's very strange. As I grew in my formative years, I didn't think too much ahead. I was really man of the moment. I was enjoying life. I was enjoying whatever I was doing. And I didn't think what I'd be doing next.
But that's the trait of being young, right?
It is a good thing. So I really I worked with him in Siwa Oasis. I enjoyed my trips there. I enjoyed spending a lot of time in the oasis of Siwa. One of the things he taught me to do I have to admit is write. And through his guidance in writing, I don't write very well but at least I write in a structured manner and within that process there was a lot of critical thinking being taught so yeah so I think he guided me in that direction as well.
And then what changed for you? Why did you decide, actually, I want to go more into a business line?
No, I've always been much more commercial than he has been. I think that my story is a continuation of his story. So very, very early on when I was establishing one of consulting and helping the establishment of the first microfinance company in Egypt, I knew outright that this is not what I should be doing we should be doing our own company. When I moved into ecotourism with him, I negotiated a big deal with one of the developers in Egypt to raise funds and open six eco-lodges and go international right so I've always been much more entrepreneurial and more private sector oriented. So but the story is still the continuation of the seed he planted.
I read an interview or I listened to an interview you did in the last 18 months or so where someone asked you, you also have your father's family business, which is a very well-known luxury jewelry brand. And the person asked you, why didn't you go into your other family business? And you said that your father didn't want you to.
So you had options in front of you, but you decided to go on your own.
So I had gone on my own way before all that. So I was trading in seeds and herbs and exporting and I did a company with a few friends of mine and we were importing wheat and selling it to the government. I was hustling right, left and center. So that has always been in my DNA. When life became a bit too expensive for me, I called up my dad and I told him, listen I think I can join your jewelry business and we opened 20 stores and we go international and rebrand it. And he thought I'd do much better in other fields and sectors and he was right.
It's funny how there's always that one person that sees that the right path for you, I feel. I have that in my own life. And we think that that's a path for us. But then they say, no, you should be going that way. And when you look back, it's correct. I think having a mentor is extremely important. Because in different ages, there are different decisions to be made. And having someone who has walked that road before you, they know where the bumps are, where the openings are, what challenges you'll have. So having a mentor is extremely important. And for you, who would that be? Does that change with time, by the way? I don't think it's a fixed person. I think you might have someone when you're younger. And then that evolves with time, I think, as well.
Yes. So I've had different mentors at different stages in life. Some were friends, some are family, some are extended family so I've had many people I've consulted throughout my journey and I still consult.
Do you want to give a few names? Who comes to mind?
So at a young age I consulted my friends, Mohamed Kamil is a name that comes to mind very quickly. Ashraf Zaki is another person. At times where I need guidance in riskier situations. I consult Tamer Hanewi, who's a friend and a lawyer as well. Let's remember that. I have to admit, my wife, Enjy, she's extremely intuitive. She's a good sounding board because she's intuitive. Obviously, my dad, my uncle, they come to mind. And my brother-in-law, Nasef, he's another person I always consult, especially in big decisions.
So you have these anchors that you have that guide you.
So tell me a little bit about, you know, we know the Halan story, but I'm always fascinated to hear it because starting off very much in a tuk-tuk business, you managed to transform that into a microfinance unicorn.
I wouldn't say microfinance unicorn.
Why? What would you call it?
A fintech. But it had its origins in microfinance, right?
It's a part of it. Vehicle financing was the start and it was a very, very exciting part of in my life. And it was also a very tumultuous time for the country because you were developing this business with a backdrop of a revolution. Revolution and financial crisis coming before that. These are a lot of challenges even for established companies. How did you, you know, tell me first a little bit about those origins, the transformation from tuk-tuk to fintech. Let's start with that.
That's an eight-year journey. It's an eight-year journey. So it starts in 2010. After the financial crisis. And tuk-tuks were still new in Egypt. And GB auto or the late Dr. Raouf Ghabour, they were selling about 30,000 a year and his dream was to sell a hundred thousand a year and when we came in the solution was financing. And when Dina called me and said, listen we want you to do financing to the three-wheelers, I thought outright it's a brilliant idea because there's an asset. It's asset-backed. It's revenue generating. And affordable. Generally speaking compared to other transport modes, right? It was extremely profitable for the TukTuk driver. The payback period was about nine months. So, no matter what interest you charge, it still made a huge economic sense. And you're improving their lives because they're generating income. The first few who bought tuk-tuks from us, a few years later, they had five, six tuk-tuks operating. So it just showed that it was extremely profitable. And really, what worked really well for me then was that the market was ripe. It was a blue ocean. There wasn't anyone else doing it at the time. There wasn't anyone else doing it, and they proposed it to all the existing microfinance businesses who refused the opportunity. So part of the reason why the opportunity came to me, because my would-be competitors refused to take the deal.
What was the logic for that?
That they're a riskier segment. They won't pay back on time and so on, which is counterintuitive because it's asset-backed. There's a vacant.
Yes, yes. There's a vacant. Of course.
So we launched quite quickly. We started discussions in June 2009. We had an SHA signed in October. We had a company formed on the 30th, 31st of December 2009. My son was born 10th of January. We sold the first tuk-tuk 15th of March. You have these dates imprinted in your head.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember it. Of course. March 2010, we sold 64 tuk-tuks. 27 in Shobra Khaima and 37 in Hawamdiya. So no, I have that very, very clear in my mind.
You should have a chart somewhere that shows these numbers.
So from there, we started introducing cargo tricycles, motorcycles. And in 2014 they aborted the importation of tuk-tuks. That was a big shock to my system. I knew I had to do something different by November of the same year. By July, it had reopened again so we got another.
And what was the reason? Why did the government stop that?
Tuk-tuks have been controversial from day one. Now, they stopped them all together. So they've been controversial. By July, we started selling tuk-tuks again. By November, the microfinance law was issued. Two years later, we started doing microenterprise loans.
So at this point, you're paralleling microfinance with tuk-tuks. Two separate companies. Are you looking at these both with an eye to see which one is really going to be the winner? Was that in your head at the time?
No, I had no doubt that distributing working capital and access to finance has much more demand than vehicles. So I had no doubt that... And at the time, at the beginning, the focus was on women? We spent maybe two, three years only working with women, group loans for women.
What was the logic for that?
It was a product I had worked with at my uncle's office back in the early 2000s, and none of the microfinance companies were doing it. And yet there is statistics worldwide that women pay their debt much faster than men, I think.
Is that right? There is statistics that say that.
So at the time, it was the case up until COVID. But at the time, it was 100% the case. So, and it ticked a lot of boxes as well. And then? Then we got into technology. I met David Halpert. He took me to Indonesia. I saw Gojek. It was a billion-dollar company. We were discussing a valuation. You've talked a lot about that. What was it about that company specifically? That it was established in 2015, and it was a billion dollars in 2017. So the speed of that appealed to you? The signal was, there's a new world, Mounir, and it's rooted in technology, and you're doing nothing in technology. Get into that field. This is what year? 2017? And then I met Ahmad Mohsen. We co-founded Halan, mimicking Gojek. And at the time in Egypt, companies were not using technology in this area at all? That was the beginning of the quantitative easing in the US, extra cash, VCs forming, investing into startups. There was a whole hype that was starting around the world that culminated in a financial disaster and interest rates hiked and startups went bust. But many of which are in Egypt who went bust as well as internationally. But at the time, this period was a crazy period because valuations were just popping, popping, popping, popping. And I have to say we were quite grounded at that time. I stayed quite grounded and then we put all the companies together and aborted ride-hailing and doubled down on access to financial service.
And the meeting of you and Ahmed Mohsin, how did you meet?
