Скачать или смотреть Ep10 - DDOA Career Path Series with Omar Abedin - Al Etihad Credit Bureau - 2014-2016

After the debacle that was my third startup (described in painful detail in my previous video), I went back to a job. I was fortunate to join the new semi-government entity created for credit reporting in the UAE, the Al Etihad Credit Bureau.

There were many firsts for me here.

1st time working for a UAE government entity.
1st time working in fintech, and that too in a predominantly B2B environment.
1st time working in a local-dominated work culture.
1st time working while paying off debts (basically working for creditors!).

I was burned out. I threw myself into my work, building relationships with my co-workers, many of who are friends till today. We started reaching out to banks, on-boarding of new clients was a major challenge since the concept of credit reporting was entirely new in the UAE. At the same time, we had to educate the public on the advent of credit scoring, what it meant for them, and how things would evolve. It was a major challenge. Every week, we would have irate customers barging in to the Bureau offices, demanding to now how dare we share their "private" data with banks who were looking to evaluate the riskiness of individuals and business prior to writing loans. It took a LOT of work, but generally people came to understand the concept of Debt Burden Ratios (DBRs) and started managing their credit better. It was a tough transition for many, but the overall impact for the entire banking industry in the UAE was massive.

We on-boarded 50+ banks in those initial years, and then other industries that extended credit started jumping on board. It was a rewarding journey, made more so by the amazing people - locals & expats - that I got to work with. People like Fatma, Marwa, Suzanne, Junaid, Bader, Hamad, Usman, Zeeshan, Ghanem, Binu, Hina, Tariq, Mohammed Al Marri, and so many others made my day every day.

After 3 years with AECB, I resigned to move back to Pakistan. Phase 5 begins in the next video. Stay tuned.

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