Welcome Account

Whatever the reason for their arrival (work, study, humanitarian), all immigrants have difficulties with banks. They don't fit the profile of the typical bank customer, and their situations are poorly understood. They have no information, no choice, and very often no access to services tailored to their needs.

Without a bank account, it's very difficult to live in France and in Europe. It's not possible to receive your salary, pay in stores or bills, buy products online, and so on.

This delays social and economic integration. Ultimately, it's a loss of value for France, because these are people who work and consume.

The problem is massive, since every year, there are 90 million immigrants in Europe, including 3 million who come to settle every year.

Welcome Account is a neobank for newcomers (workers, refugees, students).

Welcome Account is a mission-driven company that provides simple and inclusive financial solutions for all the newcomers who come to Europe to work, study or simply to live

It targets an audience of over 90 million immigrants in Europe and aims to accelerate their financial inclusion.

It offers a simplified KYC path to open a bank account for newcomers in full compliance. 

We are offering a payment account, a VISA debit card and a multilingual application to allow people to manage their finance easily.

Beyond the usual banking services, Welcome Account aims to be a life partner to accelerate the economical and social intergration of newcomers through technology and the generative artificial intelligence.

We are developing a GenAI agant that helps the newcomer to better manage its finances and gives many information for improving the integration.

Immigrants from Africa and Asia who want to create a new life in Europe are our primary targets. When they arrive, access to banking services is a major challenge. The services are not adapted to their situation. Normally, they spend a lot of money but receive limited service. Most of them come for work and earn a decent revenue.

They normally come from under-banked countries, so they miss out on the benefits of banking services. Being accompanied by a banking player who understands their situation can change their lives and give them significant financial health.

Rooh SAVAR - Co-founder & CEO

Rooh is an entrepreneur and journalist. He specialized in communications and media at the beginning of his career, he graduated from École supérieure de journalisme in Paris. He also founded Jahan Info, a startup specializing in geostrategic intelligence using artificial intelligence. In 2018, he became the President of SINGA, an NGO promoting migration-based innovation. As a political refugee, Rooh himself faced the same problems as all newcomers.

Caroline SPAN - Co-founder & COO

After graduating from Université Panthéon-Sorbonne and ESCP Business School, she started her carrer in politics. Caroline managed the Orange startup startup accelerator and coordinated the international network of Orange startup accelerators (17 worldwide). In 2020, she became co-director of La MedNum, France's leading player in digital inclusion. She launched 4 services and multiplied revenues by 10 in 2 years.

Caroline & Rooh have known each other for over three years as they were managers of two partner organizations (La MedNum and Singa). Rooh as the president of SINGA helped many refugee entrepreneurs. Caroline created the website https://refugies.info/ a source of information for refugees in 2019-2020.

Hamze Ghalebi is our non-founder CTO. He was an engineer in Iran. As a
refugee in France, Hamze is self-taught in coding. He also studied
at Télécom Paris, one of the best engineering schools in France. He co-founded Remotion, an security startup in edtech.

On the Tech / Product part : 

Our first MVP is operational.
We have built :

• our own core banking system
• our own service client
• our differents app (web app, Android, IOS) We have done all the integration with our providers (KYC, AML, cards, French IBAN)

Here is a video of our GenIA agent : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye8uEHypPRY&ab_channel=WelcomeAccount

On the commercial part:

We have signed a contract with the Red Cross to address 1000 of their beneficiaries.

We are in advanced talks with 20+ companies such as Adecco, Manpower, Randstad (recruitment agencies), contruction companies.

On the fundraising part :

We have raised 660k€ with dilutive and non dilutive funds.

We won several awards among which the UNHCR innovation fund prize and Abeille Assurance (one of the biggest insurance company in France).

https://www.unhcr.org/innovati...

On the communication part :

We have been part of  the TV show "Qui veut être mon associé?" on M6 (famous TV channel in France).

We were selected among 4000 applications.

Caroline was selected a one of the 6 finalists for the Female Founder Challenge at Vivatech in 2023.

On the ecosystem part :

We have been selected in many incubators or programs, epsecially the one of Microsoft dedicated to GenAI startup.

Being part a MIT Solve will be game changer for us.
In France and Europe, we have a less positive culture about immigration. 

Every day, we are facing challenge to explain how immigration is necessay for an economic growth.

We are resolving a massive issue that is unknown for non immigrant people.

One of the only way to convince is to be supported by recognized and credible institutions

We're convinced that the support of an institute like MIT can give us undeniable legitimacy.

Of course, being a part of a community is important for us. We could leran from other Solvers and also share our own experience. We love to giveback !

Firstly, immigration is intensifying worldwide, and particularly in Europe. Over 3 million immigrants arrive every year to live on the continent. With almost 90 million immigrants, Europe is the most attractive continent. It's a bigger market than Germany. 

At the same time, banking regulation is increasing, and banks are becoming more and more reluctant to accept non-European clients. The combination of these two realities has created growing financial exclusion among this population. Automation of many customer onboarding processes, notably KYC, makes the new tools unable to process identity documents from many countries. Most customer risk detection algorithms are unable to adapt to the situation of a newcomer, which is naturally different from that of a native. 

At the same time, two technological revolutions are enabling us to tackle this problem and offer a sustainable solution. The emergence of fintech and its spectacular development over the last few years has created the ideal conditions for offering highly segmented banking services. The AI revolution is also giving us the ability to tackle complex problems and come up with hyper-customized solutions on an industrial scale.

Banks play an essential role in people's economic lives in Western societies. Banking discrimination is over with Welcome Account. With us, the entire user experience is tailored to the real needs of newcomers. Powered by GenAl, we provide the right services at the right prices to help them improve their lives. Thanks to a multilingual platform, our users benefit from a welcoming user experience with us. Being with Welcome Account is not another additional cost for immigrants, but having a life partner at your side.

We want to give to more immigrants access not only to a bank account, but also to financial services that help them improve their lives and create a stable, sustainable financial situation for themselves and their families.

We are measuring our impact by measuring the number of bank accounts opened each year, and the additional services we can offer each customer (e.g. credit, loans, savings, insurance, financial literacy).

What we would like to measure is the reduction of time of integration. We know it could take 5 to 10 years and we would reduce it to 1 year.

One of the major challenges the banking sector faces is the difficulty of large-scale personalization of inclusive financial solutions for minorities, especially newcomers. Thanks to advances in generative AI, we can make this personalization scalable and dynamic. We use AI to create personalized virtual agents for each user. Our ambition is to build a vast and complex network of these virtual experts. Imagine thousands of independent virtual entities, each specialized in a particular subject (budget management, administration, financial habits in a specific country), working in tandem to manage the specific needs of distinct groups of users. This approach enables us to democratize access to financial services at an individual level. The Generative IA helps us in a number of ways:

• optimizing internal processes by simplifying KYC and anti-fraud procedures, thanks to in-depth knowledge of our customers
• improving customer service with an agent able to respond faster to user requests.
• the deployment of an ultra-personalized experience thanks to a multilingual and soon voice-enabled application capable of offering recommendations tailored to the user's profile. We were selected by Microsoft to be part of their first GenIA startup cohort. More than just a bank, we aim to become a life partner for our users.

Rooh Savar, CEO - full time

Caroline Span, COO - full time

Hamze Ghalebi, CTO, full time

Mansour Mahboubi, Tech Lead, full time contractor

Hojjat Jalali, Product Designer, full time contractor

Marie Lecarderonnel, Compliance officer, full time contractor

Saleh Shojaei, front developer, full time contractor

Rooh Savar- since February 2022 (2 years)

Caroline Span - since May 2022 (2 years)

Hamze Ghalebi- since June 2023 (1 year)

Mansour Mahboubi- since June 2023 (1 year)

Hojjat Jalali- since Octobre 2023 (9 months)

Marie Lecarderonnel- since October 2023 (9 months)

Saleh Shojaei - since July 2023 (1 year)

We are convinced that diversity is a source of innovation.

Our team is made up of French nationals and immigrants or refugees in key roles. We also have LGBTQI+ people in our team. 

We create a working environment where diversity is valued. Everyone's cultural and personal specifity is respected.

We create moments where our team members can share their particularities with pride.

Our business model is B2B2C so we sign deals with companies, universities, NGO that welcome newcomers.

We have our first 1000 clients signed through the biggest NGO of the world (Red Cross), we are negiociating with more than 20 companies to provide bank account to their employees.

We have three sources of revenues:

- Subscription

Our main revenue is based on subscription. The cost is 4.99€/month/user. The first year is paid by the company or the NGO

- Interchange

On each card transaction, we perceive around 0.1%of the transaction

- Commission on additionnal serrvices

We are more than just a bank, we provide many other services on which we perceive a commision from our partners.

We have raised 660k€ the last year thanks to our business angels, prizes and loans. This first round was made to start the company, launch our first product and recruit a team.

Our business model is something totally new in the fintech world. It's in adequation with our target because newcomers are often linked to a company, a school or a NGO when they arrive.

This acquisition strategy was thought and built according to our own experience. We have signed with the Red Cross and we are in discussion with 20+ companies.

We are aiming to reach 100 000 clients to be profitable.

Technology helps us to optimize our internal process, all our operational tasks are being automatized. This part helps us to reduce the costs.