ISLAMABAD: Mobilink Microfinance Bank Limited (MMBL), the largest digital bank in Pakistan, has partnered with foodpanda Home Chefs, the nation’s leading platform for home-based restaurants, and AdalFi, a techlogix subsidiary focused on digital financing, to initiate short-term micro-financing solutions for household chefs.

Being a first-of-its-kind initiative, this strategic alliance will offer weekly loans of up to PKR 50,000 for home chefs to help resolve supply chain, marketing, and food quality issues, ultimately driving higher revenues and branding benefits for these home-based business ventures.

The Home Chef market in Pakistan is a significantly diverse and growing segment. It has enabled entrepreneurs, especially women, to explore new ways of being financially independent while leveraging their culinary skills.

The foodpanda provides a viable platform to these talented individuals, facilitating them to seamlessly reach millions of customers across the nation, while giving them access to its extensive network of riders. This strategic partnership is an exciting development for Pakistan’s economic and financial landscape as it enables an essential monetary support stream to help female entrepreneurs scale their ventures sustainably.

With the recent introduction of MMBL’s Dost Tajir, the bank has been prioritizing efforts to promote financial inclusion for the underserved masses through access to convenient and affordable digital financial solutions to empower them to scale their businesses.

Speaking on the development, Muntaqa Peracha, CEO of foodpanda, stated: “While empowering home chefs, especially women who are exploring a new field of entrepreneurship, foodpanda is on a mission to level the playing field for these talented individuals. Through this partnership, we are easing one of the biggest barriers to growth in the market, i.e., financing. With the support of leading institutions like Mobilink Microfinance Bank and Adal Fintech, these home chefs now have the opportunity to grow without worrying about finances”.

Addressing the partnership, Sardar Mohammad Abubakr, Chief Finance and Digital Officer at MMBL added:| “Collaborations with like-minded organizations are key to achieving our ambitious financial inclusion goals. At MMBL, we believe in extending support to various segments of society, especially women, who constitute more than half of the nation’s population but have significantly low financial inclusion figures to date. We are at the cusp of not just empowering these entrepreneurs financially, but also creating innovative paths for them to be active contributing drivers of the economy”.

“We at Adal Fintech foresee women entrepreneurs as an emerging contributor to Pakistan’s GDP”, said Salman Akhtar, CEO – AdalFi

“The AdalFi mission is to equalize access to credit for all Pakistanis using data and AI to power credit decisions. Foodpanda Home Chefs is a phenomenal example of our technology in operation”, he added.

As Pakistan’s leading digital financial institution, the MMBL has over 40 million registered users, including 15 million monthly active mobile wallets. The bank strives to facilitate customers by streamlining nationwide access to simplified and convenient financial solutions. MMBL, over the past decade, has introduced multiple innovative and customized digital and financial initiatives, such as digital on boarding of customers, self-service banking through the DOST App (available on both iOS & Android), internet banking, the Women Inspirational Network (WIN) programme, and the Humqadam programme to provide employment opportunities to the differently-abled and much more.