FinTech Marketing in MENA: Lessons From Scaling Halan to Millions of Users

Fintech marketing is different because you're asking people to trust you with their money, and every customer you bring in is also a risk decision. The lessons I took from helping scale Halan to millions of users are simple to say and hard to do: earn trust before attention, treat the first transaction as the real conversion, and grow acquisition and credit quality together.

I joined Halan in 2020 as Head of Digital & Performance Marketing, then ran marketing and growth for the MNT-Halan group as Group VP until 2024. MNT-Halan is Egypt's first fintech unicorn, and Halan grew into one of Egypt's leading fintech apps, with 10M+ downloads. I was part of the founding team that shaped its growth engine. This is the fintech marketing strategy I wish someone had handed me on day one.

Why fintech marketing is different from other app marketing

Most app marketing playbooks assume the job ends at the install. In fintech it barely starts there. A food delivery app can win a customer with a discount. A lending app or a digital wallet has to win something harder: the belief that your money and your data are safe, and that the terms are fair.

Here is what makes fintech marketing its own discipline:

• Trust is the product. People don't try a financial app the way they try a game. They need proof: a known brand, clear terms and real people they can talk to.
• Regulation shapes the message. What you can promise, how you show fees and how you talk about approval are all controlled. Creative that works in e-commerce can be a compliance problem in lending.
• Every customer is a risk decision. In a lending or BNPL business, a cheap customer who doesn't repay is not cheap.
• Activation beats installs. Downloads look good in a report. A completed sign-up, verification and first transaction is what pays the bills.
• Offline and online work together. Many people still want to see a physical presence before they trust a financial brand.
• You often sell more than one product under one name, which makes positioning harder and cross-selling possible.

Fintech customer acquisition: activation beats installs

The most expensive mistake in fintech customer acquisition is optimising for the cheapest install. Ad platforms will happily find you people who download and never come back. Your dashboard looks healthy while your business isn't.

At Halan, the number that mattered was not downloads. It was how many people got through onboarding and made a first transaction: a first loan, a first instalment purchase, a first payment from the wallet. That is the real conversion in fintech. Everything before it is interest, not a customer.

Treat acquisition and credit quality as one problem

If you're marketing a lending app, your marketing team and your risk team must look at the same numbers. A campaign that brings in lots of applicants who get rejected, or who borrow and don't repay, is not a growth win. It costs you twice: once in media and once in losses. The fix is a shared definition of a good customer, agreed before the campaign launches, and cohort reports that show approval and repayment by channel, not just cost per sign-up.

Building trust: education, offline presence and referrals

Trust doesn't come from one big campaign. It comes from repetition across many touchpoints, and in fintech marketing in Egypt that means mixing digital and physical channels.

Education content that answers real questions

Many first-time users have never used a digital wallet or bought now and paid later. Their questions are simple. How does instalment pricing work? What happens if I pay late? Is my money safe? Content that answers these questions plainly does more for conversion than another discount banner. Short videos work well here, especially on TikTok and YouTube, where people already go to learn.

Offline presence still matters

At Halan we ran online and offline together: Facebook, Google, TikTok and YouTube alongside outdoor, activations, events, PR and partnerships. In a market where many people are new to digital finance, seeing a brand in the street, in a shop or at an event makes the app feel real. Merchants and agents can be your strongest channel, because they are trusted faces in their neighbourhood. If they understand the product and benefit when their customers use it, they become your sales force.

Referral loops built on real value

People trust friends more than ads, especially with money. A good referral loop rewards both sides with something tied to the product, like a fee waiver or cashback on a first transaction, and only pays out when the referred person actually activates. Pay for installs and you'll get fake accounts. Pay for activation and you'll get customers.

One brand, many products: cross-sell, BNPL and digital wallet marketing

At MNT-Halan I led marketing across Halan App, Tasaheel, Mashroey, Halan Cash, Halan Mart and Talabeyah. That meant lending, consumer finance, BNPL, payments, an e-wallet, e-commerce and B2B commerce, all in one group. Marketing that portfolio taught me three things.

1. Cross-sell is your cheapest acquisition. A customer who already trusts you with payments is far easier to move into BNPL or lending than a stranger. Map the natural next product for each customer and market it inside the app, at the right moment.
2. Decide what the master brand stands for. One strong brand lets trust travel across products. Separate product brands make sense when audiences are very different, like consumers and businesses. Either way, the choice should be deliberate, not historical.
3. BNPL marketing and digital wallet marketing need different messages. BNPL sells access and flexibility at the point of purchase. A wallet sells convenience and safety in daily life. Same brand, different promise.

The rebrand moment

Halan started in ride-hailing before it became a fintech app. When a company changes that much, the brand eventually has to describe what it is now, not where it began. In June 2022 I presented Halan's rebrand to the marketing team, and the lesson I kept is that a rebrand is an internal launch before it's an external one. If your own team can't explain the new brand in one sentence, your customers won't either.

What I learned building Halan's marketing team

I built the in-house marketing team around the business goals, not a headcount target, adding each function when the strategy needed it: performance, growth, content, brand, design, PR, offline, product marketing and data analytics. If I had to pick one function I would never cut, it's data analytics. In fintech, every decision about spend, product or message needs a number behind it, and cohort data is what keeps marketing and risk honest with each other.

I also built go-to-market plans for Pakistan and Turkey. That exercise forced me to separate what was specific to Egypt from what would work anywhere. The principles carry over: trust, activation and cohort discipline. Channels, partners and messages have to be rebuilt for each market. If you want the bigger picture of how a growth team changes as a company scales, I covered it in what changes when growth reaches unicorn scale.

FAQ

What makes fintech marketing different from other marketing?

Fintech marketing has to earn trust before it earns attention, because people are handing you their money and their data. It also works under regulation, and in lending or BNPL every new customer carries credit risk. That's why activation and customer quality matter more than install volume.

What is the most important metric for fintech customer acquisition?

Track activated customers, meaning people who complete onboarding and make a first transaction. Then follow those cohorts over time, by channel, to see who stays, transacts again and, in lending, repays. Cost per install on its own will mislead you.

Should a fintech use one brand or a separate brand for each product?

One master brand usually helps, because trust earned in one product transfers to the next and cross-selling gets easier. Separate brands make sense when the audiences are very different, such as consumers and businesses.

If you're building a fintech in MENA and need a senior marketing lead without a full-time hire, see how I work as a fractional CMO. If you're earlier and want guided support, look at the FinTech Growth Playbook in my mentoring programs.