RIYADH, 8 May 2007 — Al-Bandar Trading, which owns and operates 18 Home Center stores in Saudi Arabia, has joined forces with SABB (The Saudi British Bank) to offer “Easy Buy” facility to customers. This unique business tie-up to finance customers to buy from the top-notch range of Home Center furniture and household needs on installment-basis was announced by Waleed Shafiqullah, SABB’s business manager for consumer finance here yesterday.
“The financing will be processed within 10 minutes at the store itself as per provisions of SABB Amanah Islamic financing program,” said Waleed in the inaugural ceremony organized here on this occasion.
The event was attended by Mofarah Jahbelli, Al-Bandar’s general manager; Vittal Prabhu, chief operating officer; Suresh Srinivas, national marketing manager; Wassim El Hajj, SABB’s sales manager and Abdullah M. Al-Gain, area manager for consumer sales finance.
Spelling out the salient features of SABB’s Amanah financing and its tie-up with Home Center, Prabhu said “the customers will be the main beneficiaries because they will be required to pay the cost in a staggered schedule.” All Home Centers, he said, are packed with “an impressive selection of top-class furniture, houseware, garden furniture, glassware and carpets besides a range of accessories used at homes.
“This Easybuy facility extended by the bank will enable the shoppers to buy things of their choice on easy and affordable prices at Home Plaza stores across the Kingdom,” said Marketing Manager Srinivas, adding that the Home Centers are one-stop-shops for furniture and household needs. He pointed out that “the Easy Buy facility is currently available in Riyadh and it will be shortly available at our stores in Western and Eastern Provinces.”
Srinivas said “Home Center has made a large customer base catering to all walks of life.”
In fact, the total number of customer is growing progressively, while the company follows an aggressive roll out plan as part of an ambitious expansion program, he explained. Waleed said that “SABB Amanah financing is fully Shariah-compliant and we have developed special products for Saudi market.”
“This product means in-store installment financing called ‘Easy Buy’, which covers only in-store locations of Al-Bandar Trading,” he said. “Basically, our in-store Internet connection will allow us to pull customer’s record from Saudi Credit Bureau on the basis of which the financing will be approved,” he explained. “Whether it is SABB Amanah financing facility that you seek, or that dream furniture from Home Center stores, you will find that our finance products will meet your expectations in value, price and approval time,” the bank officials said.
SABB is an associated company of the HSBC Group, one of the world’s largest banking and financial services organizations with around 10,000 offices in 82 countries and territories across Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa.
The local SABB bank operates through an ever-growing network of 73 branches in Saudi Arabia, including 12 exclusive ladies’ branches with a team of 2,795 employees, of whom 85 percent are Saudi nationals.
