LuLu Financial Group Targets 30% Digitisation By 2020

LuLu Financial Group, part of the Abu Dhabi-based hypermarket-to-hospitality LuLu Group, is undertaking a major push to digitalising its money transfer and other financial transaction businesses, setting a target of moving 30 percent of its business to the digital platform by 2020.

The M A Yussuf Ali-promoted group has also drawn up an ambitious expansion plan for its financial business vertical, which includes expansion into the European market, besides more countries in the Asia Pacific region.

“We are currently incorporating a major technological shift in our financial sector business and intend to encapsulate further financial services that are available in our brick and mortar branches on to our mobile app,” Adeeb Ahmed, MD of LuLu Financial Group, told Arabian Business.

“We are on track to move 30 percent of our transactions on to the digital platform by 2020,” he added.

New app

Encouraged by the wide acceptance of the group’s money transfer mobile app, LuLu Money in the GCC region, Adeeb said they would soon launch the app in the other countries where they operate, including the Asia-Pacific region.

LuLu Financial Group currently operates about 200 branches spread over 11 countries, including India and Hong Kong.

The group has brands such as LuLu Exchange for remittances and transfer of money, LuLu Forex for buying and selling of foreign currencies and LuLu Money, its mobile app platform.

It has crossed the $10 billion mark in its total transactional value in its financial sector business and is billed as the second largest player market in exchange and money transfer segment in the GCC market.

New markets

Without specifying any growth targets, Adeeb said: “We have witnessed good growth in overall business over the past three years, and we intend to target the same numbers in the coming two years.”

As for its proposed expansion plans, Addeb said: “We are currently studying on making our entry into the European sector this year.

“Malaysia is also on our radar and we are looking at opportunities for further penetration in South East Asia.”

Adeeb also hinted that the group would be seriously looking at mergers and acquisitions to achieve faster growth in its financial sector business.

“We are looking at consolidating the current number of outlets (branches) that we operate and also looking at mergers and acquisitions for expansion.”

Sources close to the LuLu Group said it is also making plans to set up operations in Singapore and Indonesia, as well as a major penetration in Malaysia as part of its expansion plans in Southeast Asia.

With large number of expat Indonesians working in various Gulf countries, the group’s strategy is to develop major corridors like Indonesia-GCC as also intra-region corridors among various Southeast Asian countries for its remittances and other financial services businesses.