Dubai: The UK operations of UAE Exchange – once part of B.R. Shetty’s Finablr – has been bought by Wizz Financial, a fintech specializing in payments. The approval for the deal has been granted by UK’s Financial Conduct Authority.
In the UK, once the handover is done, UAE Exchange UK will be rebranded. The UAE operations of UAE Exchange, at one time the biggest name in the country’s remittance trade, was sold in 2020 to an Israel-UAE consortium.
Incidentally, Wizz Financial is a subsidiary of Prism Group AG, which also bought the UAE operations of UAE Exchange.
Wizz Financial will focus on synchronizing all of its offerings between the US, UK, UAE and India. UAE Exchange UK will offer more remittance services as well as micro-lending solutions and related products. “FCA approval is an important milestone for us and we appreciate their support in our vision to create a leading financial services company underpinned by cutting-edge technology to best serve customers,” said Wizz Financial co-founder and Group Chairman Amir Nagammy.
In its heydays, UAE Exchange Centre was one of the drivers of NMC Group, founded by B. R. Shetty. It later became part of Finablr, the financial services holding company for Shetty and which went in for a stock market float in the UK. It was later in that UAE Exchange got caught up in the financial troubles that Shetty and the Group went through.
The Wizz Financial Group has more than 5,000 employees; relationships with 140 correspondent banks; and a presence across MENA, India, Africa and with subsidiaries in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Wizz Financial itself is a subsidiary of Prism Group AG.
