Latest news with #Beehive
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
First look inside the affordable café and pantry opening today in Bishop Auckland
A new affordable café and deli pantry that gives its profits to charity will open in County Durham today. The Beehive coffee shop and pantry, supported by the Angel Trust, opens its doors in Bishop Auckland this morning (May 30). The shop, on Kingsway, is set to offer 'luxury' goods but at more accessible prices, with any profits going to the Angel Trust. Beehive, Coffeeshop & Takeaway and Pantry opens tomorrow in Bishop Auckland supporting The Angel Trust (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) Founder and CEO Clair McGregor said: "We are just so excited to bring the Beehive to Bishop Auckland. "It's an area that needs affordable options and we hope to help as many people as possible with our community pantry. "We just want to do some good." A preview opening night was held on Wednesday (May 28). (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) Plans for the cafe began to form when the property next door to the Angel Trust's Kingsway pantry side became available. They took over the property to expand and Clair decided to open the café to bring more people into the pantry. The food bank and community pantry is currently in need of donations like canned goods, pasta, rice or fresh produce and will also be stocked with items made in house. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) The chef at Beehive will make chutney, pickles, and fresh bakes while an own-named coffee will also be on sale. The cafe will also offer takeaway services, daily specials and a range of drinks and snacks. The Angel Trust charity aims to help communities across County Durham. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) The shop and pantry will be open from 9am til 3pm daily and a takeaway hatch will be open from 8am. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) Manager Alex Bestwick. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) Chef Martyn Hull. (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT) (Image: SARAH CALDECOTT)
Zawya
5 days ago
- Business
- Zawya
Beehive hits USD 1bln in SME funding, accelerating growth across the GCC
DUBAI, UAE, May 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Beehive, the region's leading digital SME (small and medium-sized businesses) lending platform, has reached a landmark milestone by underwriting over USD 1 billion in SME funding across the MENA region. This achievement follows Beehive's recently closed structured funding agreement of USD 140 million with institutional partners. The agreement enables Beehive to significantly scale its funding capacity, reinforcing its position as the lender of first resort for SMEs outside the traditional banking system. Since its inception, Beehive has supported the growth of over 2,100 SMEs across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, disbursing more than USD 1 billion in SME financing. With a mission to bridge the region's USD 250 billion SME funding gap, Beehive continues to empower businesses through swift, digital, and accessible financing solutions. " This milestone is more than a number it reflects the real impact we've made on thousands of businesses across the region," said Craig Moore, Founder and CEO of Beehive. " With the support of our institutional and banking partners, we are accelerating our efforts to provide meaningful capital to the SMEs driving economic growth." As Beehive continues to grow, it remains firmly committed to providing SMEs with the capital they need to scale, innovate, and succeed. About Beehive: Founded in 2014, Beehive is the first peer-to-peer lending platform in the MENA region to be regulated by the DFSA. Headquartered in Dubai, Beehive connects businesses seeking finance with investors willing to support their growth, offering a faster, more affordable funding option for SMEs. Through technology and a commitment to supporting regional businesses, Beehive has become a trusted partner for SMEs across the GCC. Learn more at SOURCE Beehive For media inquiries or further information, please contact: Milda Kise, Group Head of Marketing, Beehive Fintech, +971 058 550 6713,
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Beehive hits USD 1 Billion in SME funding, accelerating growth across the GCC
DUBAI, UAE, May 29, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Beehive, the region's leading digital SME (small and medium-sized businesses) lending platform, has reached a landmark milestone by underwriting over USD 1 billion in SME funding across the MENA region. This achievement follows Beehive's recently closed structured funding agreement of USD 140 million with institutional partners. The agreement enables Beehive to significantly scale its funding capacity, reinforcing its position as the lender of first resort for SMEs outside the traditional banking system. Since its inception, Beehive has supported the growth of over 2,100 SMEs across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman, disbursing more than USD 1 billion in SME financing. With a mission to bridge the region's USD 250 billion SME funding gap, Beehive continues to empower businesses through swift, digital, and accessible financing solutions. "This milestone is more than a number—it reflects the real impact we've made on thousands of businesses across the region," said Craig Moore, Founder and CEO of Beehive. "With the support of our institutional and banking partners, we are accelerating our efforts to provide meaningful capital to the SMEs driving economic growth." As Beehive continues to grow, it remains firmly committed to providing SMEs with the capital they need to scale, innovate, and succeed. About Beehive: Founded in 2014, Beehive is the first peer-to-peer lending platform in the MENA region to be regulated by the DFSA. Headquartered in Dubai, Beehive connects businesses seeking finance with investors willing to support their growth, offering a faster, more affordable funding option for SMEs. Through technology and a commitment to supporting regional businesses, Beehive has become a trusted partner for SMEs across the GCC. Learn more at Photo - View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Beehive
Arabian Business
27-05-2025
- Business
- Arabian Business
‘Agentic AI' takes over credit sanctions role as UAE banks make major strides in digital banking
'Agentic AI' is fast making major inroads into the UAE banking sector – moving beyond chatbots to autonomous decision-making in credit and customer experience – with some of the banks already going live with them for granting personal loans and SME financing – amidst rapid digital banking initiatives in the region, sector experts said. The digitalisation drive is also seeing the emergence of major partnerships between banks and fintechs to deploy AI and data to deliver context-aware offers at the customer's moment of need, besides cutting operational expenses in the banking sector. Emirates NBD's digital-only bank is among the UAE banks which have moved from the pilot stage to live models for autonomous underwriting, while fintechs such as UAE-based leading digital SME lending platform Beehive are partnering with banks for its AI 'credit bot' model designed for scaling in SME finance. UAE fintech sector to hit $6.43bn by 2030 'Autonomous underwriting is no longer confined to pilots – in the UAE, it is already in action,' Siobhan Byron, EVP – Universal Banking at Finastra, a London-headquartered financial software major, told Arabian Business. 'Liv., Emirates NBD's digital-only bank, now grants personal loans of up to AED 200,000 directly in-app with a sub-three-second service-level agreement and zero human touch,' she said. Byron said the AI agent ingests bureau scores, salary flows and real-time behavioural signals, renders an approval or decline, books the loan to the core and pushes funds to the customer wallet – in one atomic workflow. Similarly, Beehive uses machine-learning risk models fed by cash-flow, e-commerce and utility-payment data to auto-approve working-capital tickets in hours rather than weeks. Digital banking dominance ahead Industry players said the rapid digitalisation comes in the wake of an increasing realisation that, going forward, the combination of the lowest unit cost and deep personalisation at scale will define market dominance in the region. They said banks that seize the platform opportunity will be able to accelerate their migration to an augmented, cloud-native banking core, while monetising data and APIs through open banking frameworks and across non-bank channels. Industry executives said such banks will also be able to scale rapidly by leveraging partnerships instead of building everything in-house. Those that hesitate will be vulnerable to loss of market share, they said. Byron said Finastra's 'Financial Services – State of the Nation 2024' report showed that 71 per cent of UAE institutions increased their budget for modernisation, such as cloud-native and API-first projects, in the last year, the highest ratio of any market surveyed. 'From a Finastra Universal Banking point of view, we're seeing increased spend in areas such as retail banking and Islamic finance,' she said. The Finastra senior executive said MENA banks that orchestrate partner ecosystems – instead of building everything themselves – will lead the region's $11 billion-plus digital banking platform boom. Emerging partnership and revenue models Sector experts said even as the fintech-bank partnerships for the digitalisation drive are on the rise, there are various partnership and revenue-sharing models are in the works to preserve the bank's primacy while providing partners ample room to innovate. Though there are several constructs working in the UAE – and the wider Gulf market – risk-weighted revenue share is seen among the preferred models, they said. In BNPL schemes, for example, the bank provides the asset – i.e., the loan – and takes on the risk, while the fintech is the delivery channel, taking a distribution fee that flexes with portfolio performance. Another is co-branded embedded finance, where the merchant checkout still shows the bank's brand and customers return to the bank's app for servicing, ensuring data and cross-sell opportunities stay with the bank. 'By layering AI, machine learning and deep analytics on that core, institutions can harness real-time insight into each customer's habits and needs. 'The result is hyper-personalised services, for example, automatically extending a low-rate loan to a customer who is edging their overdraft or providing live balance and spending-pattern alerts in a slick mobile app, while bots handle the routine back-office work,' Byron said. She said looking ahead, the same architecture will let banks move from reactive to predictive. 'With ever-richer data feeds and predictive models, they can spot life events and market shifts before customers do, then present precisely timed, personalised solutions, turning anticipation into the next competitive edge,' Byron said.
Otago Daily Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Leary claims minister not doing job for seniors
Taieri MP Ingrid Leary is accusing Casey Costello of being missing in action in her role as Minister for Seniors, but Costello has hit back, saying it shows the member has a "very shallow understanding of the Seniors portfolio". Answers by the Minister to Official Information requests and Written Parliamentary questions show she has not taken any papers under the Seniors portfolio to cabinet between taking office in late 2023 and the end of March this year. A search on the Beehive website shows only one press release from Costello as the Minister for Seniors since the term started. Leary is the Labour Party's spokesperson for Seniors and said Costello had done more to "help big tobacco than the older New Zealanders she has responsibility to protect the rights and interests of". "One of the very first things Casey Costello announced as minister was to overturn ground-breaking smokefree legislation that would have saved thousands of lives. "She also championed a $216 million tax break to encourage use of a tobacco product without proof it would reduce smoking rates, but would definitely profit big tobacco." By contrast, Leary said Costello "hadn't presented a single Cabinet paper to Cabinet, her party or ministerial colleagues since coming into government in late 2023 to March 2025" and she needed to "prove she's worth her portfolio" by advocating for the rights and interests of seniors. Leary suggested that could be done by bringing forward the Retirement Villages Act review and by advocating for pay equity in the care and support workforce who look after "many of our grandparents, parents and ourselves in our later years". But Costello, a New Zealand First MP, rejected the accusation, saying it showed the Labour MP did not know what the government was doing to support older Kiwis. The Office for Seniors (OFS) was a small office that did not administer legislation and "has never been a large generator of Cabinet papers", she said. "Cabinet papers are not a measure of either the government's commitment to older New Zealanders, or my focus and effort as Minister for Seniors." The OFS helped her work across government to deliver better results for older people, Costello said. Some of that work required her to work with other ministers including, for example, the changes to allow people to build subsidiary dwellings and the Retirement Village review. "And a substantial part of our policy programme for seniors is around improving aged care, which I'm responsible for as Associate Health Minister." Costello said older New Zealanders could be assured every commitment made to them in the NZ First-National coalition agreement would be met this during this government's term.
