Seamless Xtra’s Alia AlHussein interviews Mohammed Al Zaben, Co Founder, ClearGrid, UAE.
Revolutionizing Debt Resolution: AI, Empathy, and the Future of Financial Health
1. How is AI reshaping debt collection while maintaining a human-centric approach?
Our view is that AI isn’t here to replace humans in debt collection; it’s here to replace inefficiency. The old model relied on scripts, call centers, and guesswork. AI changes that. It predicts who’s likely to pay, when, and how to engage them. We have kept the human-centric part of the design. We’re not automating harassment—we’re automating empathy at scale. The goal isn’t just to collect debt, rather, it’s to resolve it in a way that works for both sides.
2. What are the biggest regulatory challenges in digital debt resolution, and how can fintechs navigate them?
Regulations move slower than technology, and that’s the tension. The biggest challenge is navigating rules that weren’t built for digital-first models—data privacy, cross-border compliance, and consumer protection. The trick is not to treat compliance as an afterthought. Build it into your product from day one. If you’re trying to “add” compliance later, you’re already behind.
3. How will debt collection evolve with the rise of BNPL and alternative lending models?
BNPL expanded more rapidly in the region because it made credit more accessible. Debt collection has to catch up. The future isn’t about chasing people after they default—it’s about predicting risk before it happens and embedding resolution into the user journey. Think real-time nudges, flexible plans, and data-driven insights that prevent defaults in the first place. Debt collection will feel less like a confrontation and more like a financial health tool. Almost everyone goes through a financial hardship at some point in their life so it’s important for lenders to treat them with dignity and respect.
4. How do you measure the impact of AI-driven debt resolution on both lenders and borrowers?
Simple: does it work? For lenders, that’s higher recovery rates, lower costs, protecting customer data, faster resolutions, and getting customers to come back and retain them. For borrowers, it’s about reducing stress—are they engaging more, defaulting less, and actually getting out of debt? Metrics like repayment success rates, time-to-resolution, and customer satisfaction tell the story. If you’re only improving outcomes for one side, you’re doing it wrong.
5. What lessons from MUNCH:ON’s growth and acquisition help you scale ClearGrid?
Speed wins. At MUNCH:ON, we learned that execution beats ideas every time. You can’t overthink your way to growth—you have to build, launch, test, learn, and repeat. Also, distribution matters more than product. A great product with no distribution dies quietly. With ClearGrid, we’re focused on solving a massive problem, fast, while making sure the right people know we exist. The rest is noise.
