Primary Finance rebrands to Pfida; plans new products

UK-based Primary Finance has completed a year-long rebranding exercise in line with the start-up’s ambition of becoming a full-service Islamic fintech alternative, with a couple of new products slated in the coming year, IFN Fintech has learned.

Founded in 2016, Primary Finance, now known as Pfida, has big plans after years of quietly building its customer base, infrastructure and business pipeline. With little to no marketing, the firm has a waiting list of approximately 6,000.

“We have financed around 65 homes to date and this year, we want to finance our 100th if not 200th home,” Raza Ullah, CEO and the founder of Pfida, shared with IFN Fintech.

Pfida (pronounced faɪ-dah with a silent p) started as a Halal home financing company, but it intends to broaden its product suite to beyond home financing. Its true Murabahah debt-free home-buying product remains its core offering. Its current product suite also includes a buy-to-let financing scheme and savings accounts which were launched at the end of 2020.

“In the next 12 months, we expect to soft launch one major new product and hopefully next year, soft launch one other new product,” revealed Raza. “The new products are designed to complement our existing services suite and help to make us the ultimate ethical alternative for those who do not wish to go to a bank.”

Apart from the new products, the company will begin mobilizing marketing campaigns. It is also working on launching another investment window in July, inviting individuals to open Islamic savings accounts.

“These tend to be heavily oversubscribed, so we usually close the window within two weeks. In the very first savings account window we opened, we raised GBP600,000 (US$748,728) in the space of two weeks (our target was GBP250,000 (US$311,970). But now, quarter-on-quarter, that has grown. In the last window, we took on around GBP5 million (US$6.24 million) into our Islamic savings accounts (our target was GBP2.5 million (US$3.12 million)),” according to Raza.

Pfida is one of at least 42 other fintech start-ups providing Shariah compliant financial services in the UK, according to the IFN Islamic Fintech Landscape as at the 3rd May 2023.

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