A UAE-based fintech app is transforming how families and workers engage with financial systems. Botim Money, operated by Astra Tech, has introduced new tools that enable parents to educate their children on smart money habits while giving them early exposure to credit—a first-of-its-kind initiative in the region.
The app, which already offers seamless local and international transfers, is now enhancing its family-focused features. Parents will soon be able to customise spending limits, restrict purchase categories, and provide their children access to multi-currency prepaid wallets. These everyday transactions become teachable moments for financial literacy.
“If your child wants to buy something, you can toggle on and off the things that they can and cannot spend on,” said Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, CEO of Astra Tech, in an interview with Khaleej Times.
“It gives parents a lot more control over how they fund their children’s cards and they can see how much money they are spending. This is going to start becoming a way for us to educate a lot of kids on how they can be more financially responsible.”
One of the most revolutionary aspects of the platform, according to Dr. Tariq, is the ability for parents to build a credit score for their children. This “parent-child financial link” will allow kids to start building a financial identity from an early age—an advantage especially critical in the UAE, where many young adults struggle to join the formal banking system due to a lack of financial history.
Beyond helping families, Botim Money also aims to tackle financial exclusion, particularly among the UAE’s massive blue-collar workforce. The app enables users without a traditional bank account to access virtual IBANs, remittances, and borrowing services.
“More than 4 million people in the UAE are unbanked or underbanked,” Dr. Tariq said. “We help them enter the financial ecosystem, giving them access to credit, savings, and digital payments—thus helping them build a credit history from scratch.”
The platform plans to embed AI-powered financial education directly in the app, providing interactive lessons and support in multiple languages—essential for non-native English speakers and first-time borrowers.
This move is part of a larger strategy shift by Botim from a broad super-app vision to a more focused financial services platform. “We’re not trying to be everything to everyone anymore,” said Dr. Tariq. “Our focus is clear: we want to be the best at consumer finance—not a jack-of-all-trades.”
The renewed focus is already paying off. User engagement has more than tripled since recent updates, and the company is exploring international scale through organic growth or acquisitions.
Botim sees a future where a child using the app today grows into an adult with a strong credit profile, financial confidence, and full access to global financial services. As Dr. Tariq summarised, “Our biggest success will be when that child becomes part of the global economy with financial discipline and opportunity.”