After Saudi, fintech major Clear expands ops to UAE, Bahrain, Oman

Fintech online taxation and software company Clear has announced that it is looking to expand in the five GCC countries--UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait. The startup has already achieved significant milestones and business growth in Saudi Arabia.

Clear has onboarded over 200 large enterprise customers to drive its expansion in the Middle East. The startup already has some large conglomerates with over 20 group companies and over 1,000 retail outlets.

Clear started its operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), following its $75 million fundraise last year, by launching invoicing and taxation products for medium to large enterprises. The cloud-based e-invoicing product has a scalability of millions of transactions per day, 99.9% uptime, and API infrastructure-based connectivity to multiple billing platforms and ERPs. 

Sharing his insights on Clear’s GCC expansion, Rohit Razdan, Chief Business Officer, Clear, said, “GCC countries are launching a range of digital-first initiatives as part of their “digital economy” vision. As the scale of digitisation increases, businesses are meticulously following all the tax and compliance regulations mandated by the government and showing a high willingness to comply with the evolving regulations. However, most of them are looking for high-quality solutions, which are continuously updated with new regulations. We believe that Clear is well-positioned to launch cutting-edge products in such markets and play a meaningful role in helping businesses become compliant. Our new products can also help businesses bridge this gap and embrace the changes, as they can be integrated with most accounting/ invoicing systems and ERPs. We also plan to work with local solution providers to power thousands of businesses to simplify their financial lives.”

The company stated that as part of Vision 2030 envisioned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the government is launching various digital-first initiatives that will transform the Kingdom. Under his regime, organisations have become more inclined to adopt newer technology.

The fintech firm directed a significant amount of its investment to localisation of the product suite, including Arabic language support, cloud infrastructure setup inside the Kingdom, and customisation of the product as per local business needs. The company has also invested heavily in brand-building. 

Similar to India, Clear is working very closely with government bodies like ZATCA (Tax authority of Saudi Arabia) to launch suitable products for the enterprise needs, including VAT compliance, Accounts Payables and Receivables automation and B2B payments in the next few quarters.

While Oman has announced its e-invoicing mandate to go live in the second half of 2023, Bahrain is expected to follow suit and launch by January 2024. Clear will launch its e-invoicing solutions in these countries in the coming months. The fintech company is well-positioned to help businesses in digital payments, digitisation of business processes, government mandates on digitisation of tax and compliance, and overall increasing adoption of cloud-based technology solutions.