How Mounir Nakhla Bet on Egypt’s Unbanked — and Built a Unicorn - The MNT-Halan Story

So my name is Mounir Nakhla. I'm the founder and CEO of MNT Halan. I started my journey in 2010 selling two-and three-wheelers on credit, and then this grew into providing financial services for micro and small businesses and consumers and individuals. Today we are probably the largest non-bank provider of financial services through technology. So we're a fintech with an app. We're a hybrid model. We've got branches and an application. We're present in four countries: Egypt, Turkey, UAE, and Pakistan. We've served more than 8 million customers. We're a credit-led fintech, so our core business is access to funding. We've dispersed north of $15 billion since inception. We currently have about 2.5 million active customers and a loan book of $1.5 billion.

It depends how far back you want me to go. So it started off when I was at university and I was studying the impact of microfinance, which is what my uncle used to do back in the day. He was in the field of microfinance in a consulting capacity. When I traveled the villages and cities of Egypt, I realized there's a very different Egypt, a very different economy than the one I grew up in, and that was the first inspiration. The next step was founding a tuk-tuk financing business, a light vehicle financing business in 2010. Then we developed a microfinance business in 2014.

It took me about eight years of learning the skills of the trade. I got approached by Egypt's largest automotive distributor and they were launching their tuk-tuk business. They were selling about 30,000 a year and they said, 'Mounir, we think if we can introduce credit to this product, we can sell 100,000 a year.' And we did reach 100,000 a few years later.

My initial gut feeling was yes, let's do it. I wanted to establish a company, to be an equity holder, to have my own thing that I'm driving. I had to assess the viability of the product. I traveled about three hours from Cairo to the largest village where they used to sell tuk-tuks. I stopped a tuk-tuk driver and asked, 'How much did you buy this for and who did you buy it from?' Then I went to the person who sold it and asked, 'How much did you buy this for and how many are you selling?' I went up the whole supply chain and realized there's about 20% margin trading margin in the tuk-tuk, let alone the financing margin. That helped me enormously in my negotiation with my partners because I told them, 'Listen, you guys are importers. I'm going to distribute and finance, and I want a trading margin.' That changed the economics of the whole company dramatically.

Yes. The tuk-tuk in Egypt was operating as a revenue-generating business. It was more of a taxi than for personal use, commercial use. The payback on the tuk-tuk was about eight months if you pay it in installments. It made a lot of economic sense, and that gave me comfort to lend. And it's also asset-backed; there's an actual vehicle worth $2,000.

We seeded the company for about $2 million at the time in 2010. That for me was a lot of money. We then leveraged, and that was a big mindset change. I went to a bank. The business was going well. We launched in late December 2009, sold the first 64 tuk-tuks in March 2010. By June, I was signing a loan agreement with the first bank for another $2 million, provided we increase the capital a bit. That was a game-changer because it was my first introduction to leverage. I said, 'First, I'm making money with my own money, but then I'm making money on other people's money.' That was brilliant.

This journey kept on going. I said, 'Okay, now we've got a distribution network. We have 200, 400 locations. Let's add motorcycles, cargo tricycles, refrigerators.' I just kept adding products. We were selling while paying value-added tax because there were no licenses for private companies to lend money. The law changed in late 2014. Earlier in 2014, the government had banned the importation of tuk-tuks for three months, which was very tough on me and the company. But when the lending license came out in late 2014, I rushed to establish a microfinance company. That was a big turning point because we started doing a very different product: group loans for women, and then business lending.

In 2017, I get a call from one of my shareholders. He told me, 'Mounir, you've done this fantastic company. You're big into vehicle financing, so you have a stronghold on owners of motorcycles, three-wheelers, and cargo tricycles. I would like to encourage you to come to Indonesia and meet the founder of Gojek.' I spent a whole day with the founder of Gojek. At the time, Gojek was a billion-dollar company doing ride-hailing and delivery, established in 2015. We were around for seven years, transacting at about $150-160 million valuation. I asked, 'Why are they so much more valuable than we are?' The bottom line was technology. VCs were flooding money, interest rates were getting less, and there was a lot of investment in technology. I said, 'Okay, I can do ride-hailing. I can get as many drivers as I need. I need an application and marketing.' That's when I started looking for a partner and found Ahmed Mosaad, who co-founded Halan with me. Halan started as a ride-hailing company. By 2019, we were doing about 3 million rides a month. We introduced e-commerce and our own closed-loop wallet. We were still learning, but we were burning $1 million a month. A million dollars a month was hard to digest. In summer 2019, I was raising a $15 million round and thought, 'What am I doing? I'm raising $15 million that I'm going to burn through in less than 12 months, and then I'll be out raising again.' That was a big turning point. The VC world wasn't talking about unit economics or path to profitability; it was all about growth. I went to Ahmed and said, 'Something's wrong with this ride-hailing business. If we increase prices, rides go down. If we reduce driver incentives, drivers stop working. I see drivers doing rides with family members just to meet incentive targets.' He asked what I suggested. I told him, 'I've got the lending business. Lending won't scale without the right technology. Our systems are breaking down. If we put all our energy into financial services, it's going to be a game-changer.' Ahmed's buy-in was incredibly important. I then had to approach two sets of shareholders: one focused on profitability and a solid finance company, and the VCs and tech shareholders. The VCs said, 'Why do you want to partner with these guys? We're going to disrupt them. You'll do ride-hailing and then financial services.' The other side said, 'Why do we want to buy a loss-making company with 70-90 engineers and a big brand name?' The only way forward was to raise fresh equity and buy out those who didn't like my vision. This was happening in Q4 2019, and COVID hit in early 2020. I had to practice patience and meditation. Even with COVID, the loan book was deteriorating. We managed to close the round in 2021, raising $120 million, mostly for secondary transactions to buy off shareholders who didn't want to combine. Since then, it's been an incredible ride. We built proprietary core banking software, Neuron, on microservices. We added an open-loop wallet, grew e-commerce, and introduced savings and investment products.

Ahmed was recommended by a friend and top VCs. I knew he complemented my skill set with little overlap. We're very different in how we operate. He has a cool demeanor, good sense of humor, great social skills, and is a math and tech whiz. There was chemistry. It took a while to convince him. He started building through his company at arm's length, then I suggested an acqui-hire and equity. He was skeptical that the masses in Egypt were tech savvy enough for ride-hailing. I assured him there's a whole other Egypt of 110 million, and it was an eye-opener. That gave me credibility.

I'll address the loss-making first. Uber and Amazon were born in the US with abundant funding and different VC stages. In our side of the world, it's easy to raise $10-15 million, but try raising $100 million for a loss-making business. It gets challenging. That's what I saw coming. Once interest rates increased, money dried up. Many startups went bust. I'm glad we did what we did when we did. Regarding acquisition, we had a huge database of drivers from selling motorcycles and three-wheelers. We tapped into that and used our distribution across Egypt's 26 governorates. We also had an online form. There was an inspection to ensure the vehicle was in good shape.

We've been consistent with fundraising. We raised in 2018, 2021, 2023, 2024. The last round was over $100 million to acquire a Turkish business. We've cumulatively raised $400-500 million. The narrative is we're a tech company with strong focus on technology, growth, and profitability in dollar terms. The problem with Africa is currency devaluation. Even if you perform well in local currency, steep devaluation hurts investors. Our business adjusts quickly because the average loan size is dollar-denominated or linked to inflation. We've consistently grown in dollar terms.

We had a huge database of drivers because we were selling tens of thousands of motorcycles and three-wheelers. We first tapped into that and used our distribution and contacts across Egypt. We also had an online form where you could download the app and join. There was an inspection to ensure the vehicle was in good shape.

I ask a lot of questions. I'm curious and like to get to the bottom of things. As a child, the word at the tip of my tongue was 'why'. I'd just keep asking why to go through the layers.

It was incredibly stressful. In 2018, I sold some shares and made a bit of money. You'd think I'd be partying, but I was stressed. It took me until summer 2021 to breathe again. Those two years, plus the three months in 2014 when tuk-tuk imports were banned, were the most difficult periods.

A big part is knowing that good times don't last and bad times don't last. We navigate our own journey. If you know there will be sunshine after the rain, you wake up, put cold water on your face, and push forward. Also, try to have a good time, experience joy, social warmth, and time alone. I practice Tai Chi, go to the gym, and play paddle.

Thousands. The tech team alone is about 120-150. We have field agents, but the head office is about 1,500. Turkey has 1,000 people.

I had to reinvent myself. It comes with aging. The 30-year-old is not like the 40-something. One has to readjust. I used to be a branch manager, reviewing credit cases one by one. Then I became area manager, COO, CEO. I learned on the job.

I never worried about that. There are many other things I worry about, but not that.

I don't worry about a lot of things. I practice the law of acceptance. When things happen, you accept them and try to push forward.

No, we didn't merge. We relocated our head office to the Netherlands as part of restructuring. The next big move was Turkey. We decided to expand through acquisition. It was probably one of the largest moves I've made. I negotiated an acquisition north of $150 million when the money wasn't readily available. I was fundraising and acquiring in parallel. I loved the management team—similar culture and work. It took nearly 15-16 months to close.

I'm a deal maker by nature. I like deals. I thought, we're the market leader in Egypt. What's the next big thing? My job is to move the company from a billion to five billion. The best way is to have growth avenues in different countries. I had a meeting with EBRD who were interested to invest, and they pointed out this company in Turkey. An advisor suggested looking at Turkey. We went around, and I mentioned a company I knew. The advisor knew a shareholder. I met the management and said, 'This is a slam dunk.' It was a strong marriage: two countries with 100 million population each, Turkey's economy three times Egypt's.

Whoever owns the customer is king. One should be 100% consumer-centric. If it's a B2B solution, it has to be integral to what they do with big value added, or it's hard to make big money. It's a tough market.

In some domains. Ahmed is better suited to answer. In customer responses, call center bots, credit scoring models, behavioral models, we use AI. We also have a large language module that answers any question about profitability, risk, promotions, etc., because it's plugged into all our data.

For Egypt, we're not ready yet. For countries like South Africa, it's essential. It depends on the market. In Egypt, people might say, 'You're giving us money from one hand and taking it from the other.' But micro insurance in South Africa is integral to the lending ecosystem. It's an easy cross-sell.

We explored for a year, looking at partners. We weren't able to reach an agreement, but it's a very interesting market with various players. I've looked at publicly listed consumer finance companies. It's a big, more developed market than Egypt.

I looked at numbers of a few companies. Growth is strong. The good ones are building the right ecosystem for the customer with payments, insurance, fee-based revenue. There are interesting plays in South Africa.

They're separate but connected. I believe people are agents for good or less good. I wanted to be an agent for good from a young age. I knew I wanted to make money, so if I can provide access to finance in underserved communities, that's a win. The purpose of my career is benefiting society. I've experienced the power of leverage, and for small businesses, it's a multiple of that. Regarding deal-making, finding the sweet spot for two parties to agree is difficult. People listen to themselves, not the other side. If you listen with an open mind, you can understand the underlying need. Sometimes they want a good return, not a cheap price. Address the return issue, not the price.

It's a skill that improved over time, but I've been somewhat talented in that regard. It boils down to having a clear chain of thought and conveying it clearly with a sense of humor. Storytelling is important. Facts don't always sell; stories do.

We were somewhat proactive but could have been more. Referral schemes came later, discounts came later. Some tools came in later rather than earlier.

I'm still in it. We're still trying to promote network effects, gamify experiences to make customers stickier, reduce churn, and create network effects. We've used social networks for credit scoring—if you have a network of good borrowers, it increases your credit score.

Banks. I spent years going from one bank to another. I had to convince small credit officers, then the risk team. I had to understand their constraints and give them comfort. It's a lot of lobbying and selling. If you promise numbers and deliver them, banks gain confidence. For some banks, I gave them live screens of our collection and portfolio performance. I see what they're concerned with and give them what they want.

AI is a tool to better serve customers. But the market is huge in what we're doing. My immediate strategy is to grow into other countries in the GCC, possibly Saudi Arabia. In UAE, we launched earned wage access—200,000 loans in the first year with three people. Pakistan we turned around the bank. Linking countries together creates synergies like remittances—Egypt collects $39-40 billion, Pakistan tens of billions. How do I move from 2 million to 10 million active customers? That's what I'm solving.

I think highly of stablecoins. Regulation has to allow it. In some countries it does, in others it doesn't. It's also a hedge in emerging economies. How does it compare to gold? You promote gold, stablecoins, and everything follows.

I'll answer your AI question quickly. Yes, AI will take jobs in the tens of millions. It's totally disruptive. In five years, the world won't look like now. Regarding Egypt's VC scene, we got hit post-COVID and interest rate hikes. But in the last year, Egypt performed well macroeconomically—currency stability, inflation down, foreign reserves up, FDI from GCC growing. I'm very bullish. VC money will come back to pre-COVID levels.

Thank you. Looking forward to it.