Kholoud Hussein
Taly stands at the forefront of innovation with its extensive digital payment ecosystem, offering a diverse array of services designed to meet the evolving needs of merchants, consumers, and corporates.
In this exclusive interview with Magdy Hassan, CEO of Taly, we will delve into the company’s core services, including its omni-channel payment solutions and advanced features such as tokenization and remote payment gateways. We will also examine how Taly differentiates itself in the market through its robust infrastructure and commitment to security.
Furthermore, we will explore Taly's strategic vision for the future of digital payments, including their plans for expansion into the Middle East and their efforts to enhance financial inclusion in Egypt. This conversation promises to provide valuable insights into Taly’s role in shaping the future of digital transactions.
Can you provide an overview of Taly's core digital payment services and how they differentiate you from other players in the market?
Taly is a top-tier provider of digital payment ecosystem that introduces omni-channel collection solutions, offers a robust ecosystem designed to serve various audiences, including merchants, banks, corporates, consumers, and fintechs. What sets Taly apart from other players in the market is its full-fledged digital payment ecosystem backed by one of the largest on-soil infrastructures in the MENA region. This ensures high availability and secure systems with minimal technical glitches.
Taly’s services include omni-channel payment acceptance, seamless e-commerce integration, and an array of value-added services like digital invoicing, and supply chain lending. Additionally, Taly offers innovative solutions such as tokenization, pay-by-link, remote payment gateways, and fully automated collection cycles, tailored to meet the diverse needs of its clients. This comprehensive approach to digital payments, combined with a strong commitment to security (evidenced by ISO/IEC 20000 and PCI certifications), positions Taly as a leader in driving digital transformation and fostering a cashless society.
What innovative features do Taly's digital payment solutions offer to merchants and consumers?
Taly offers a variety of innovative features designed to empower merchants, consumers, and Corporates. For merchants, Taly provides a digital omni-channel proposition that empowers merchants with one single App that allows instant monitoring of all acceptance channels, supporting all kinds of payment methods.
Taly payment gateway is considered the country first on soil payment gateway that meets all global standards while fully integrated with the domestic payment schemes; Meeza Digital and the Instant Payment Network (IPN). This enables merchants to accept payments from all types of cards, wallets, and Payment applications.
Moreover, Taly’s ecosystem is built to support merchants with several value-add services which became highly needed these days such as access to fund, integration with BNPL players, supplier payments. Our ecosystem also introduces cash with purchase, allowing customers to cash out money upon making purchases from merchants using our acceptance POS machines.
A standout feature in Taly's offerings is the use of tokenization for cardless payments. Tokenization technology allows consumers to make secure and convenient payments by simply tapping their phones at POS terminals, eliminating the need for physical cards. Additionally, it further enhances security by replacing sensitive card information with a unique token, ensuring that actual card details are never exposed during transactions. This combination provides a seamless and secure payment experience for consumers and increase the consumer adoption of more cashless behaviors. It also gives merchants the ability to offer advanced payment options that cater to modern consumer preferences.
For consumers, Taly’s Super App delivers a one-stop-shop for digital payments, offering inflows and outflows management, e-wallets, bill payment, and a loyalty system that incentivizes activity. The app is designed for ease of use and provides consumers with the peace of mind that comes from managing their financial transactions digitally without the need for physical cash. Taly’s approach not only simplifies transactions but also enhances financial control and security for both merchants and consumers.
For Corporate, Taly’s Corporate Portal is the first of its kind that empowers Corporates ,for first time, to manage directly their employees cards, manage the company expense via the unique features developed by Taly that enables the Corporate to control the spend of their staff instantly wherever and whenever the company wants them to transact where both the company’s employee has a mobile App to manage and control their cards, while the company has Taly portal to control and manage the transactions instantly. The solution provides corporates with an answer of many business challenges such as controlling the fleet system, manage petty cash, and control T&E expenses. Moreover, Taly provides corporate with creative ways to fund their expense via banking facilities and empower the corporate with effective dashboard and analytical tools.
How do you foresee the digital payment landscape evolving in the next few years, and how is Taly preparing for these changes? Are there any plans to introduce new services or products in the near future? If so, can you share any details?
The digital payment landscape is poised for significant growth and innovation, with a strong shift towards more integrated and seamless financial ecosystems. Technologies such as tokenization, advanced payment gateways, integrated lending solutions, and innovative corporate payment solution are expected to become increasingly prevalent. Taly is at the forefront of these changes, having already introduced many of these solutions in the Egyptian market.
Looking ahead, Taly is preparing by continuously enhancing its infrastructure and expanding its ecosystem, the company is also focused on fostering collaboration across the financial sector, enabling banks, fintechs, and corporates to innovate and thrive within a connected digital framework. This proactive approach ensures that Taly will remain a key player in the ongoing digital transformation, driving the adoption of cashless payments and supporting the broader financial ecosystem. Taly designed and built its ecosystem with a futuristic vision that can serve upcoming trends such as digital banking, and open banking.
In what ways have you seen the Egyptian market respond to digital payment solutions, and what opportunities do you identify there?
The Egyptian market has shown a positive response to digital payment solutions, with increasing adoption among businesses and consumers alike. Taly has identified significant opportunities in this landscape, particularly in the areas of e-commerce, fintech innovation, corporate digitalization. The market is moving towards more integrated financial systems, and Taly is well-positioned to lead this shift by offering secure and innovative digital payment and collection solutions.
Opportunities in Egypt include the growing demand for BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) services, e-commerce payment gateways, and digital invoicing systems. Taly’s ability to provide a seamless digital ecosystem, supported by robust infrastructure and security, allows it to capitalize on these trends. As digital payments become more ingrained in everyday life, Taly’s comprehensive offerings will continue to meet the evolving needs of the market.
How does Taly plan to enhance financial inclusion through its services in the Egyptian market?
Taly is deeply committed to enhancing financial inclusion in Egypt by providing accessible and innovative digital payment solutions that cater to a wide range of stakeholders, including underserved populations and small businesses.
A key aspect of this mission is Taly’s role in empowering fintech startups. By leveraging Taly’s robust digital infrastructure—one of the largest in the MENA region—these startups can transform their innovative ideas into fully operational and commercially viable financial products. This not only accelerates the growth of the fintech sector but also ensures that a broader array of financial services and products becomes available throughout Egypt, reaching even the most underserved areas. Taly is already in collaboration with several fintechs and BNPL players to be integrated with our ecosystem and empower them with Taly payment capabilities.
In addition to empowering fintech startups, Taly is addressing the significant gap in cash usage, particularly among merchants. Many merchants in Egypt still rely heavily on cash transactions due to concerns about the complexity and security of digital payment solutions. Taly aims to bridge this gap by offering a more convenient, secure, and user-friendly financial digital experience.
Taly helps merchants streamline their financial interactions with suppliers and vendors by enabling instant payment and collection of invoices through a digital account, which is also linked to a prepaid card. This setup helps merchants keep their capital and liquidity in check, ensuring that their financial operations are smooth and efficient. Moreover, Taly offers flexible digital lending programs to finance merchants' working capital, increasing their purchasing power and enabling them to settle suppliers' invoices promptly.
By attracting more merchants to embrace digital financial technology, Taly is enhancing its business operations while contributing to the broader goal of reducing cash dependency in the Egyptian economy. This, in turn, helps integrate more businesses and consumers into the formal financial system, fostering a more inclusive and digitally empowered marketplace in Egypt.
Moreover, Taly offers consumers with a revamped wallet solution bundled with Tokenization features that would give an effective entry products to the youth segments, new to banks, and underserved consumers. Taly revamped wallet offers consumers the same privileges of full- fledged banks including e-purchase, e-commerce, transfers, bill Payments, and robust digital cash-in and cash-out options via a one-stop-shop digital App, offering highly secured payment with advanced consumer digital experience. Taly solution for this segment is a true example of bridging the gap between banked and new-to-bank consumers.
How do you envision Taly's role in the future of digital payments in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the wider GCC region? What are your expansion plans for these markets, and how will you tailor your offerings to meet the unique needs of consumers and businesses while enhancing customer experience in the region?
Egypt is at the heart of Taly's growth strategy, where we are fine-tuning our digital payment ecosystem to address the vastly diverse needs of the market. Our immediate priority is ensuring that the model is not only functional and successful but also optimized for scalability. By focusing on Egypt, we are building a strong foundation that can later be expanded into the broader Middle East.
Many GCC and Africa markets share similar needs in areas such as digital bank enablement, tokenization, and supply chain lending which offer a natural pathway for expansion. Once we establish a strong foothold in Egypt, our experience will allow us to scale effectively into these regions. These markets are also transitioning toward cashless economies.
By leveraging the lessons learned and infrastructure developed in Egypt, we can tailor our offerings to the specific needs of wider GCC and Africa markets, empowering stakeholders with the same level of digital bank enablement and advanced tokenization technologies that we’ve pioneered in our home market. The focus now remains on perfecting the model in Egypt, so it is ready for broader application and growth across the Middle East.