We recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Andrew Grant from James Monro, a specialist executive search firm supporting leadership recruitment across fintech and financial services. In this candid exchange, our CEO Dhafer Berrachid shares the story of Axe Finance’s journey—from our deep focus on credit automation to the values that shape our culture and growth strategy.
Covering everything from innovation and global expansion to recruitment philosophy and AI adoption, the conversation offers a behind-the-scenes look at what drives Axe Finance forward.
Read the full interview below.
Dhafer B. :
Hi Andrew. Pleased to meet you as well. Thank you for inviting me to this short interview today.
Andrew G. :
So we’ll jump in straight away. First question. What do you think has made you and Axe Finance a success?
Dhafer B. :
Lots of things but fundamentally the three core principles that are driving this business, which are focus, expertise and values.
Since day one, we have stayed laser focused on our business, which is automating the credit and risk value
chain for financial institutions. Over the last 21 years we have built a deep expertise that we can offer to our customers and to the overall ecosystem, such as partners.
We are obsessed with delivering real added value to our clients, not just delivering a piece of software. Oh, it works, then it’s fine. No, we are not happy when it just works. We are happy when we see a real and measurable impact for the client.
As a leading cutting edge technology vendor we need to be continuously innovating, we need to always
be at the top and setting the highest standards for our clients. Continuous innovation is in the company’s DNA.
Our values and mindset extend across the whole company. The culture of the company is really rooted in the commitment of every person to the delivery of excellence. I believe a company must have values, not only marketing slogans, but real values that are anchored and rooted in everybody’s daily behaviour and day-to-day professional life.
Andrew G. :
Yes, that’s one of the things I’ve noticed about you as a company. I get a sense of what a company’s like by
how they recruit and you and your team have very high levels of integrity. You have very clear values and
you’re looking for those values in the people you hire. I know you have an excellent set of products.
Does the product sell itself or do you need a very structured sales approach?
Dhafer B. :
Having a fantastic product and waiting for the market to come to you is certainly not the right approach, even though today we do still get lots of inbound leads.
Having the best product in the world is far from being enough to be successful, so a real sales organisation, I’ll call it a “sales machine” is important. Even though we are in the B2B market, we need a structured well organised sales team. This includes not only pure salespeople but also business
development, which includes marketing, inside sales or SDR and of course Presales.
You can imagine how complex a sales process can be, how lengthy it can be and how high our clients’ expectations are. So, from a sales perspective, we need to be really consistent using all the tools available to us to make us successful. The selling process is comparable to a music band, where everybody has their own piece to play and they all need to be playing in harmony.
Andrew G. :
You need a great band to play a great piece of music.
Dhafer B. :
Absolutely, a good drum and a bad guitar player and it’s not good. The sales organisation is extremely important in our domain where it’s not numbers, but it’s quality. It’s strategic sales. Sales life cycles are very long, and you need to be very consistent all the way through the process.
Andrew G. :
Why did you move the commercial arm of your business to London in 2023? What led to that decision?
Dhafer B. :
Yes, London was a strategic move to support our European expansion. London being a major hub in finance and Fintech. This move gave us access to an excellent pool of talent in London too.
Even though we are still a private company, it gave us access to funds, even though we have not – through our own choice- raised any funds yet. The move has given us visibility to potential investors and talent. We are now enjoying a high profile presence in London with a fully-fledged office and a team addressing the European market.
Andrew G. :
Which geographical areas are most receptive to your tech solutions?
Dhafer B. :
Yes, we are seeing a huge interest coming from Central and Eastern Europe. Obviously, our traditional markets being Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa continue to show interest. In Western Europe, we are seeing a replacement market especially on the corporate lending side. With the introduction of new AI technology coupled with our presence in London, we have become very attractive to European participants
and European Financial Institutions.
Latin America is the next move and we are addressing it for now from London where our global sales
operations are based and we’re starting through partners.
Andrew G. :
So, leading on from this which types of clients have you enjoyed most success with?
Dhafer B. :
Our solution covers all types of lending: retail, corporate SME, limit management, collateral management, loan origination, loan servicing, collection and EWS. So, all the credit life cycle and all the client segments. Based on the region we are in, we have more interest in different areas.
Currently in Europe, we are seeing great potential for corporate lending, collateral management and limit
management as well.
Our advanced AI based capabilities is putting us at the top of the market offering with competitions just showing slides and struggling with AI adoption.
We started investing massively in Artificial Intelligence, four years ago and now we are coming with ready to use functionalities that are really appreciated by our clients. Our solution fits all ranges of financial institutions. Where we have seen huge added value is with complex multinational groups. Société Générale is one of our flagship clients. OTP is a central European group for whom we are implementing
across corporate lending. We are dealing across multi-entity, multi-geography, multi-lingual, multicurrency time zones and regulations. Such multinational Banks have to make multi-country risk analysis and decisions for their multinational groups of customers. These complex topics are very well addressed by our solution.
Andrew G. :
Thanks Dhafer. On a different note, what do you think are the biggest challenges you and your business face today?
Dhafer B. :
I would say the regulatory changes are a big factor especially when they can be different in each geographical location.
The other challenge is the information security that becomes quite a headache for everyone and continuously achieving compliance with this. By the time I finish my sentence, I’m not compliant anymore because new threats are coming up. I’m exaggerating a bit, but that’s the reality.
And you need to be very conscious of this and we are ISO 27001 certified as a company. So that’s very important and this certification is renewed on a yearly basis. Also, AI and technology innovation in general. Staying ahead of the curve.
We need to invest continuously in these areas. I mean today we are talking cloud, so cloud means a lot
in terms of architecture. It’s not only hosting our solution on the cloud, which is an easy thing to do but
designing it as such.
And redesigning our technology to be cloud native was a big challenge. There is a very specific set of criteria set out before you can call yourself cloud native and we are proud to say that today, we are cloud native, while keeping the flexibility to be hosted on-premises as our clients wish.
Andrew G. :
And what about delivery?
Dhafer B. :
A lot is done online and automated through what we call CI/CD processes. So that’s all automated. We are
investing a lot in our internal processes too. So from a delivery perspective, we are not suffering from any time difference.
We are not selling a system for a bank to manage their moveable assets or to manage their buildings. We
are selling complex software to banks, who are using our technology to run one of their core businesses.
So, we are a mission critical system. Delivery still requires face to face interventions and face to face meetings and workshops. We need to talk, we need to document, we need to exchange about the document. A big part of it can be done through online meetings and quite a good portion needs to be done face to face. In person collaboration is very important.
The good thing is that we have offices in the regions our clients are located: Asia Pacific, Middle East, Europe and Africa. These offices are essential when we need close operational interaction with our customers.
Andrew G. :
Great. Well, thanks for that. And finally, the last question. What are the effects of PE on Fintech businesses and the Fintech market in general?
Dhafer B. :
Private Equity funds are a part of the ecosystem and they bring lots of benefits. At some point in a company’s life, you need PE intervention, and this brings not only funds, but also is an opportunity to address other needs the company has at this time. Often PE involvement will attract better talents, as
Senior Execs will know that the business is implementing a tried and tested success plan. It gives them a level of comfort.
Obviously, it depends on which PE it is and what the shareholder agreement is though. Also, how they
intervene in the day-to-day because overall they remain investors and they are expecting an ROI. So, they
would try to put the right standards in place and sometimes apply quite a lot of pressure. The lifecycle of PE involvement with a Fintech is a journey with a lot of personal alchemy along the way. The PE should be chosen with this in mind. Each PE / Fintech relationship should be tailor-made to each individual situation.
Andrew G. :
Great. Thanks so much Dhafer. This has been a fascinating Q&A.
About James Monro
This interview was originally conducted by James Monro, a specialist executive search firm supporting leadership recruitment in fintech, financial services, and technology sectors worldwide.