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Hussain Al Lawati

OMAN - Finance

Hussain Al Lawati

CEO, Muscat Finance

Bio

Hussain Al Lawati has served on various governmental committees formed to support SMEs and financial sector. He has a degree in accounting and is a certified expert in SME finance and a Harvard Business School Alumni. He is currently the CEO of Muscat Finance.

"Muscat Finance was the first finance company to start in Oman."
Muscat Finance takes a long-term, responsible approach to its business, and acts for the greater benefit of Omani society.
Can you provide an overview of the company and some of its major highlights in the past year?

Muscat Finance was the first finance company to start in Oman. It moved from privately owned to public listed in December 1992. MFC started with a small operation that complemented the banking sector to bridge the funding requirement gap in the market for different segments, mainly the segments untapped by banks. NBFCs have their own model, appetite, and market segments. Together with traditional auto finance, muscat finance was the first to introduce short-term working capital requirements for SME funding. Like any player in the financial sector, especially during pandemic period, Muscat Finance went through turbulence that was tackled wisely by the board and management with minimum impact. Due to there being no clarity on when and how the market would return to growth, MFC took cautions on growth and diluted its focus and resources to serve and manage existing customers. Financial year 2022 is considered one of the most important years in the history of Muscat Finance, when several checks and balances were exercised and are still being stabilized.

What is your current portfolio of services and products?

We have almost all regulated licensed products, such as, auto finance, leasing, home appliance finance, working capital finance, factoring, and warehouse finance. It is worth appreciating our regulators, who are consistently looking for enhancing the value-added products and services of NBFCs and we understand they are considering approval of more products for NBFCs to support the economy in general and SMEs in particular. Other than our traditional lending, MFC is also exploring micro finance products with fintech and opportunities for collaboration with different value-added businesses such as insurance, payment, BNPL, and others.

What are Muscat Finance’s competitive advantages compared to competitors?

First of all, we don’t call them competitors here at MFC; they are our peers and all of us have a common goal, which is to bring value to the country and all stakeholders. Muscat Finance as a brand itself is a value-added advantage considering its legacy and its contribution to the economy. We have a gold mine of data, which we are trying to leverage on in our relationship management, decision making, and segmentation. We are still learning, relearning, and unlearning market need and behavior to be able to meet our stakeholder’s expectations, mainly our customers. Many competitive advantages built back in the day have now became part of normal business processes. We at MFC are building competitive advantages by listening to and understanding the expectations of our customers, partners, regulators, and shareholders. It is important to keep building those advantages continuously and consistently by monitoring the cycle of these advantages from competitive advantage to business as usual.

What are your main goals and priorities for the short term?

We are continuously building our foundation by hiring resources, building robust systems, lean processes, liquidity stability, and diversified risk tolerance. Growth is essential for survival; however, we will continue to be cautious in our growth approach for the time being considering the overall domestic and international market. We are replanting seeds now, and we do understand that we have to go through thinning, irrigation, and maybe drainage—then we will see the fruits. The journey require consistency, flexibility to fine-tune, and commitment from all stakeholders. I can proudly say that we decided to plant the seed only when we saw commitment from the key stakeholders of Muscat Finance. Our strategy is aligned with Oman Vision 2040, and we are looking forward to continue contributing to the country and our society.

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