• Omar Saleh co-founded Khazna, a fintech platform targeting underbanked salaried workers in Egypt and the Middle East.

• The app allows employees to access part of their salary in advance and pay bills directly via mobile.

• Khazna partners with employers and merchants to reduce reliance on informal borrowing and traditional banks.

Omar Saleh, an Egyptian entrepreneur now based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, serves as co-founder and chief executive officer of Khazna. The fintech startup targets underbanked populations in Egypt and, more broadly, across the Middle East.

Founded in 2019, Khazna develops a mobile application that helps employees manage their money on a daily basis. The platform delivers simple and fast financial services directly through smartphones.

Khazna integrates multiple features designed to meet common household needs. The app seeks to replace or complement processes usually handled through banks, retailers, or utility billing companies.

One of Khazna’s core services provides salary advances, primarily for employees of partner companies. This feature allows workers to instantly access a portion of the following month’s salary through the app.

The service aims to reduce reliance on informal loans from family members or colleagues when unexpected expenses arise before month-end.

Khazna also relies on a network of partner merchants where users can make immediate purchases with deferred payment options. The platform further allows users to finance purchases made at other retailers while defining flexible and simplified repayment terms.

In addition, the application integrates a bill payment service, enabling users to settle recurring expenses directly from their mobile devices.

Omar Saleh graduated from Cairo University in 2005 with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. He later earned an MBA in 2014 from Stanford Graduate School of Business in the United States.

He began his professional career in 2005 at BG Group in the oil and gas sector as a senior project engineer. In 2010, he joined Dow Chemical as commercial manager for Africa. Three years later, he became an investment banking associate at J.P. Morgan in the United States.

Between 2016 and 2019, Saleh served as strategy director at Advanced Energy Systems (ADES), an energy sector company. He rejoined ADES in 2022 as a member of the audit committee, a position he held for two years.

This article was initially published in French by Melchior Koba

Adapted in English by Ange Jason Quenum