One of the biggest challenges community finance providers are working through is how to go digital. What does it take to do it well and what are the pitfalls that we can learn from?
At our first ThinkIn Frédéric Nze, Founder and Executive Chairman of Oakam, sat down with Faisel Rahman OBE, Founder and CEO of Fair Finance. Together they dissected Oakam’s journey from bricks and mortar to app only – its successes and missteps. They also explored how Oakam’s experience can translate for credit unions, community development finance institutions and other key players working to address Financial Inclusion.
You can watch a recording of the session below
We’ve also pulled together a summary write up of Frédéric and Faisel’s conversation.
We’d love to shape future ThinkIns with leaders providing financial services to people in vulnerable circumstances. Let us know what areas you would like space to think about and who else you’d like to learn from.
About Oakam
Oakam is a commercial lender that was set up to serve customers that are higher risk. Since its foundation in 2008, Oakam has lent over £400m to financially excluded people across the UK. Continuing its mission to open access and create a path to mainstream for the underbanked, the business has moved to a fully automated online lending model, replacing its network of 30 high-street branches with a mobile app.
About our Thinkins
Our new series of ThinkIns are live, unscripted conversations for all leaders who are providing financial services to people in vulnerable circumstances.
The aim is to create the space for leaders to think broadly and strategically about their businesses and the big challenges we’re all facing.
Each session we’ll bring together people who have navigated the challenge topic. They’ll often be from different sectors or parts of the market – mainstream financial services, FinTechs or wider consumer facing businesses.
The goal is to gain useful perspectives and insights to enable mutual learning. And to challenge and develop our thinking – to inform how we develop and scale affordable credit delivered by the community finance sector and beyond.
All organisations we support must adhere to our Affordable Credit Code of Good Practice which provides some guidance to providers on what we consider to be a fair price.
