From vision to velocity: How GCC banks can bridge the SME credit gap

Guru L

Senior Vice President, Lending – Product Management

I still recall stepping into a bank branch in Dubai more than a decade ago. Marble counters, paper forms stacked in piles, customers waiting with folders of collateral. Financing back then was slow, deliberate, a ritual of signatures and stamps.

Fast forward. In Riyadh today, credit growth hit 14.4% year on year at the end of 2024, fueled by Vision 2030 projects that are reshaping the skyline. In the UAE, loan portfolios expanded by 9.1%, supported by business and retail demand alike. Numbers that glimmer with promise, yet like a desert mirage, they remain elusive unless banks can move from vision to velocity.

SMEs at the heart of GCC growth

Across the GCC, small and medium enterprises make up over 90% of businesses. They are the shops on Jeddah’s waterfront, the traders in Sharjah’s souks, the startups in Dubai’s co-working hubs. Yet, despite their weight in the economy, the financing gap persists.

I once met a Saudi entrepreneur with contracts ready, customers waiting, and ambition burning. Her loan application took months. By the time approval came through, she had already turned to informal financing. That gap between ambition and access is where opportunity leaks away.

Legacy systems remain the culprit, manual approvals slow everything, borrower journeys feel fragmented. Risk models fail thin-file SMEs. Compliance demands still sit outside the flow. The result: credit delayed, growth deferred.

From gap to growth engine

Bridging the SME credit gap requires more than digitising existing processes. It means rewriting the playbook of loan origination.

1. Speed as strategy

   In today’s markets, turnaround times define competitiveness. A system that reduces approvals by 70% doesn’t just save time, it changes the destiny of SMEs.

2. Intelligent underwriting with local depth

   VAT filings, POS transactions, e-commerce flows, these are the new balance sheets. They allow banks to underwrite thin-file borrowers with confidence. In Islamic finance, segment-aware loan origination systems ensure Shariah-compliant journeys that build trust.

3. Compliance that moves with the flow

   From SAMA’s open banking regulations in Saudi to evolving frameworks in the UAE, compliance is not optional. Embedding AML and KYC directly into the origination journey means scale without friction.

A platform for velocity

This was the thinking behind Azentio Loan Origination. Built to give GCC banks and NBFCs the tools to move faster, automate credit decisions, and adapt to local realities.

It is API-first, configurable, and supports both conventional and Islamic financing. It comes with embedded workflows and approval models designed for SMEs, retail, and corporate customers. And it connects outward, into fintech marketplaces and payment providers, expanding reach far beyond the bank branch.

SME financing is not just about disbursing capital. It is about enabling ambition to move at market speed.

Vision to velocity

Walk through Riyadh and you see cranes everywhere. Sit with a trader in Sharjah and you feel the pulse of commerce. Ambition is abundant, but without credit, it stays bottled up. Like water behind a dam, pressure builds, but little flows.

I have heard SMEs call credit oxygen. Others say it is like electricity, invisible until it is gone. However you describe it, the truth is clear: financing must feel like a habit, not a hurdle.

Too often, legacy origination stretches days into weeks. Markets now move in hours. The banks that succeed will be those who make financing invisible, seamless, compliant, and fast.

That is when vision finally becomes velocity.

Guru L

Senior Vice President, Lending – Product Management