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We caught up with founders from each of the 12 selected startups, this time with Mehmet Memecan, founder of Tarfin:

Could you introduce yourself?

Prior to founding Tarfin, I worked for the world’s largest trader of fertilisers. I marketed products in developed countries with large scale farming, and countries with small scale, subsistence farming. I had the chance to see first-hand how farmers from different regions, different socioeconomic backgrounds used widely different methods to finance their farming operations.

What does ​’financial inclusion’ mean to you?

In farming, you achieve higher profitability by either planting more value-added crops, or plant more acres of the same crop. Both of these options require additional to capital. If the farmer does not have the cash readily available or if the banking system fails to deliver competitive financing options to rural areas, it is almost impossible for the farmer to earn more. Financial inclusion to us is ensuring that our farmers have access to cheap, quick, convenient, and honest financial products, however remote they may be.

Could you describe the mission of Tarfin?

Tarfin uses technology and its vast retailer network to deliver competitive financing options for farmers’ purchases of farm inputs. Farmers can buy fertilisers, seeds and chemicals today, and only pay after harvest. We bridge the financing gap, and we do it at a cheaper rate than what’s otherwise available to the farmer.

What are the unique challenges and opportunities of your home market?

Unfortunately, we have very low financial literacy in Turkish agriculture. When lack of financial know-how is coupled with aggressive financiers and sales people, you get lots of farmers with debt they cannot pay for products they do not need. Plenty of the financial products available in the market come with lots of gimmicks and hidden costs.

What is your relationship like with the regulator there?

Our regulator is extremely strict with regards to innovation in finance. Turkish regulations do not allow for crowdfunding for equity, we cannot peer-to-peer lend and we cannot form a truly digital bank. We are slow to adapt to global standards for new financial technologies, and I am certain that the real losers from this are the end-users of financial products.

How does the regulatory landscape differ in developing countries and developed countries? How can we address these differences with FinTech?

We would like our regulators to adopt the regulatory sandbox approach. For example, we would have loved to explore the idea of peer-to-peer lending. I’m sure I would have found tens of thousands of investors willing to invest in Turkish farmers and earn an above-market return with the Tarfin platform. Had our regulators adopted the sandbox approach, we could have already piloted the p2p lending structure and proven its benefit.

Follow the LHoFT’s Medium profile to read the rest of the interviews!