Faisel Rahman is CEO and founder of Fair Finance, a social enterprise tackling financial exclusion which has built a reputation for entrepreneurial growth, social and commercial rigour.
Faisal talks about how working with Grameen and the World Bank in Bangladesh sowed a seed that led to the launch of Fair Finance, and describes how understanding what makes high cost credit providers successful leads to designing products that people actually want.
Millions of underbanked people are either treated badly by the mainstream or exploited by non-mainstream providers.
Responsible Finance providers and credit unions should aim to put high cost lenders out of business by being a better alternative and ensuring they are customers’ first choice, he says.
Data disclosure and transparency feature largely in this episode too. And Faisel is forthright: responsible finance providers which can prove their social impact and their commercial viability must increase their ambitions of scale since high cost credit is a multi-billion pound industry.
Listen to the podcast via iTunes or download or click to play, below:
What next?
- Listen to Episodes 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 here or in iTunes.
- More about Fair Finance and their 2018 annual report, described in this episode.
- Please share the podcast, tell others about it, and ideally leave a rating or review on iTunes so other people can learn about the work and impact of responsible finance providers.
- Find your nearest responsible finance provider: www.findingfinance.org.uk
- And if you’re a responsible finance provider or a client and you’d like to put yourself forward to be on the show, get in touch – email podcast producer, Jamie Veitch.