Cairo Festival City Mall (CFCM), Egypt’s leading shopping and entertainment destination, and Premium Card, the financial services industry veteran, announced this month that they have partnered to create a new alliance to offer the mall’s shoppers an innovative payment-on-installment programme.
According to the new venture, scheduled to be launched by mid-August, Premium Card will offer CFCM’s visitors and customers, its unique guaranteed interest-free and bank-free installment payment facilities.
Specifically tailored for the clients shopping within the merchants and tenants of the mall, this facility card marketed under the brand name “Celebrate Flexibility Card” is a joint venture between Premium Card and Cairo Festival City Mall; aiming to offer the best of both worlds.
Under this agreement, Premium Card will deploy a state-of-the-art Fintech solution to provide an “on the spot” pre-approval to the positively scored clients, during their visit to the mall; prior to receiving their final co-branded Premium Card with the optimum approved limit.
On the shoppers’ side, the service includes receiving instant scoring and approval without paper hassle and immediate disbursement, along with quality assurance and guaranteed safe data.
“The partnership with Premium Card comes as part of CFCM’s strategy to create an unprecedented experience for our clients. Our team was fast to look into the novel market needs that emerged during the past few months.” Hayssam Hajjar, General Manager of Cairo Festival City Mall said.
‘Accordingly, we worked on deploying technology to introduce new services to the Egyptian market. Aside from being more keen on accessibility and flexibility, shoppers currently champion smart payment methods that involve easier payment terms and less physical contact.
“To us, being the first Mall in Egypt launching this type of program is a further proof that we are absolutely focused on providing the best experience to our customers at all phases during the journey. Meanwhile, on-boarding new customers is an area that we intend to significantly improve with this new offering.”
Speaking of the transaction, Paul Antaki, founder and Chairman of Premium Card, said: “This venture in partnership with CFCM marks a cornerstone of our strategy to enter new mass markets, and another milestone in our push towards diversifying our revenue stream through innovative financial products.”
‘Capitalising on the 25 million annual visitors of Cairo Festival City Mall, Premium Card will expand its vendors’ network and client base to nurture sales growth. With “Celebrate Flexibility Card”, CFCM clients will have access to the unique zero percent interest installment program of Premium Card to shop across the fantastic range of stores in the mall.” Antaki added.
From his end, Rami Antaki, co-founder and board member of Premium Card said: “This alliance is an important step in a strategy that aims to transform Premium Card from a pure play providing non-banking services in its home market into a FinTech with a solid ground to achieve traction locally and regionally.”
“Thus, Premium Card is emphasising partnerships and investment projects that tackle this specific sector, and is designed to be agile and flexible enough, to move as rapidly as possible. The current economic conditions pushed the market into a state of unmet demand and supply. Our aim is to bring innovative and convenient solutions that address a critical financing gap between Egyptian consumers’ aspirations and their purchasing power. That is why we are excited about this venture and expansion as we continue to make FinTech more accessible to the Egyptian consumer.”
