Captains are the lifeblood of Careem. When we started Careem just over six years ago we did so with only 25 Captains in Dubai – soon we will have a million Captains in over 100 cities in 14 countries.
Careem relies on its Captains, but those Captains need to have a car, so in some of the markets where people want to work for us but can’t afford a car we help them. Pakistan is one such market.
A person may not have been credit-worthy before, but with the income that we are able offer them we can guarantee to a lender that they are credit worthy, and that the future Captains will be earning an income. We also work with government initiatives to help people become employed.
In Pakistan we also work with the FleetCo department. The FleetCo department was setup to ensure multiple streams to generate quality supply for Careem.
In the past year, the FleetCo team has established three partnerships with financial institutions – JS Bank, Telenor Bank and UBL.
The JS and UBL partnerships are executed with funds generated from Government of Pakistan under the Prime Minister’s Youth Business Loan Scheme, with a subsidised interest rate of six percent. This is currently less than the official discount rate of Pakistan – KIBOR minus 1.5 percent, a rate unheard of, across the country.
Over 4,000 vehicles have been financed so far under Fleet Co’s programs – that’s over $30 million of funding in the last 12 months alone.
We are currently forwarding over 100 applications every day and with a presence in nine cities, FleetCo contributes to nine percent of the total available Careem trips taken across Pakistan.
Pakistan needs entrepreneurs and creating all these jobs is just one of the contributions Careem is making to the Pakistan economy. We love the fact that we are able to help our Captains start their journey towards financial sustainability and create more opportunities for people to become self-sufficient.
And did you know we are creating between 60,000 and 70,000 jobs every month?