Staff Reporter Karachi
HBL becomes the first bank in Pakistan to invest in a digital fintech startup with its Rs. 176 Million (USD 1.15 Million) participation in the last tranche of Finja’s Rs. 1.56 billion (USD10.15 Million) Series A1 round.
HBL joins an impressive list of leading global fintech funds that have invested in Finja including BeeNext, Vostok Emerging Finance, Quona Capital, and ICU Ventures. All investors from previous rounds topped up their investment in Finja’s Series A1 round.
For HBL, an investment in Finja serves two of the bank’s strategic priorities, namely, making investments into Digital Financial Inclusion and Development Finance companies, especially ones making an impact in agriculture and SMEs as these are the backbone of the economy, and proactively reinventing HBL to become a “technology company with a banking license”.