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Credit: Orange Egypt's ad
An entertaining, heartwarming ad is a forgiving excuse to interrupt a good series, especially during Ramadan when people seek comfort after a long day of fasting by watching TV. During Ramadan, brands compete to produce the best advertisements to enforce their brands and maximize their reach. This is obvious through their choice of celebrities to appear in the ad, selection of music, and stories that emotionally affect the viewers. Now that Ramadan is a few days away, let’s take a look back to remember the best ads from the last season. Here’s a list of the most-watched ads on Youtube in Ramadan 2021 that resonated with audiences in Egypt and other Middle East countries. 10. Fresh ‘Ramadan 2021’ Ft. Dina El-Sherbiny & Ruby
With 100K views on Youtube, Dina El-Sherbiny and Ruby’s duet song for Fresh nailed it as a real fresh song. The appliance company “Fresh” is known for its melody songs during the Ramadan season and this one was an extension of the previous years’ trend. 9. ZED
With 260K views on Youtube, ZED’s ad became one of Egypt’s trending memes in Ramadan and beyond. Why? It’s known that Cairo is divided into zones, with El-Tagamo3 and Zayed being the two extremes, making the argument of “no, you come here, you’re further away” this dialog happens every time you want to meet up with a friend from the opposite side. And that’s exactly why the ZED ad worked. The ad featured a group of top Egyptian actors, actresses, social media influencers, and footballer players, including Nelly Karim, Tara Emad, Karim Abdelaziz, Shireen Reda, and Yousra, Dina El-Sherbiny, Mido, Hazem Emam, Salma Abu Dief, Mohamed Zidane, and more. 8. Mountain View
The real estate giant Mountain View’s ad gained more than 2.6M views on Youtube with its ad about connections and being with our loved ones, featuring Hussien Al-Jasmi’s voice in a heartwarming song. 7. Alex Bank
Alex Bank’s ad gained more than 3.6M views on Youtube – Football fans sometimes or, let’s be honest, want to tell the players what to do and have them actually listen. Alex Bank played on this behavior in a light ad starring Mohamed Salah and featuring appearances from Jordan Henderson and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. 6. Unionaire
With 5.7M views, Union Air’s ad comes 6th on the list of the most-watched and resonated ads in Ramadan 2021. The ad features Sherine’s voice in an uplifting song, starring Ahmed Dash, Asser Yasin, Esad Younis, Mostafa Fahmy and more has become a favorite of many people. 5. Coca Cola Egypt
Coca-Cola decided to come in and capitalize on our heartstrings with an ad that centers on one of Ramadan’s true tenets — our shared humanity and our closeness. The ad gained more than 12M views on Youtube. 4. Bank Misr
Bank Misr’s ad for Ramadan 2021 gained more than 35M views on Youtube – Features Mohamoud Esseily’s voice in an enthusiastic song to inspire people to be confident, strong, and keep going regardless of challenges. 3. Orange Egypt
Personal opinion? This is the best ad in Ramadan 2021 by far. Hussein Al Jasmi’s song for Orange racked up 33M views on Youtube and resonated big with Egyptians and Arabs. If you are an Egyptian who lives abroad or an Arab who visited Egypt before, you will relate, this song takes your heart and mind to a deep nostalgic level. As always, the Orange brand knows how to win in Ramadan. 2. Etisalat Egypt
With more than 40M views, Etisalat’s ad featuring Nancy Ajram and Amir Karara comes second on the list of most-watched ads on Youtube in Ramadan 2021 in Egypt. Etisalat promotes its new network as the strongest in Egypt. 1. Vodafone Egypt
Ramadan 2021’s surprise, by all means, Sherihan’s return to the screen was a surprise for all the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, and even ’90s generations. Vodafone Egypt’s ad ranked #1 on the most-watched and resonated ads list in Ramadan 2021 with 62M views on Youtube alone. It monopolized conversations, we talked about nothing else except the ad and it makes perfect sense because, honestly, who doesn’t love Sherihan? Vodafone Egypt’s ad features Sherihan’s story from the get-go till her return in a smart way. Keywords

Throwback: Most Watched Brand Ads in Ramadan 2021

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Digital bank Alex Bank is understood to be on the cusp of obtaining a full bank licence which means one thing – it’ll need capital. Having survived on a handful of relatively small funding rounds from a tight group of investors, sources said Alex Bank was thinking about casting the net a big further afield for its next raising,
Alex Bank founder and CEO Simon Beitz has called in the investment bankers to advise on capital raising options. Attila Csaszar
The group has appointed Jarden’s investment bankers to advise on capital raising options and, no doubt when it’s ready, help introduce it to potential backers. Alex Bank offers personal loans, car loans, holiday loans and the like, and has recently broadened its access to wholesale debt funding sources to support growth. The group received a restricted banking licence (RADI) from APRA mid last year, and is understood to be close to upgrading to full licence status. Advertisement
Brisbane-based Alex Bank most recently raised in August, when it closed a $20 million Series C funding round at a $120 million post-money valuation. The Series C fundraising saw existing shareholders joined by a small number of new institutional investors, including SG Hiscock and Washington H. Soul Pattinson and Co.
Should it go to investors for a bigger funding round, we expect it to be pitched as similar to Judo Bank, albeit with a prime consumer lending focus rather than SME lending. The now ASX-listed Judo is the pin-up when it comes to new Australian banks raising capital. The SME lender tapped secured $1.2 billion in five years from investors in private funding rounds, before securing another $653 million from public equities investors for its initial public offering last year. It comes as rival neobank Volt Bank has also started writing retail loans and is pitching investors for a $200 million Series F funding round with the help of Rothschild & Co . Volt got its banking licence in 2019 and runs as what it calls a “banking-as-a-service” business. Instead of raising deposits and loans by itself, it goes through partners like Railspay, AFG, Australian Mortgage, BTC Markets and QPay. Volt brings the banking licence and the infrastructure, while the partners do the consumer-facing work. Anthony Macdonald co-edits Street Talk, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets. He has 10 years' experience as a business journalist and worked at PwC, auditing and advising financial services companies. Connect with Anthony on Twitter . Email Anthony at a.macdonald@afr.com
Sarah Thompson has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones. Email Sarah at sarah.thompson@afr.com
Kanika Sood is a Street Talk reporter. Email Kanika at kanika.sood@afr.com.au
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Alex Bank mandates Jarden to review capital options as licence nears

Alex Bank ramps up 2022 growth plans with two executive appointments
Alex Bank ramps up 2022 growth plans with two executive appointments
Alex Bank is ramping up growth plans for 2022 with two new executive appointments. Sascha Hunt has been appointed as Chief Growth Officer and Jeff Nel as Chief Operations Officer. The appointments come off the back of a strong 2021 for Australia’s most awarded new bank. During the year they were granted a restricted banking authority from APRA, began scaling their risk-based personal loan product, onboarded its first major broker aggregator partnership with Platform Finance and successfully raised $20 million in capital to support the growth strategy. Sascha Hunt – Chief Growth Officer
Sascha joins Alex Bank from Aussie, where she was Head of Brand and Marketing. Sascha has decades of experience growing, building, and developing brands in the finance and digital sectors, including senior roles at Allianz, Tabcorp, Google, BT Financial Group, Citibank and ING Direct. Sascha will drive accelerated growth for the multi-award winning bank through direct-to-consumer, and broker channels, with a focus on speed, service, customer experience, and value. Jeff Nel – Chief Operations Officer
Jeff joins Alex Bank from Judo Bank, where he was Head of Core Technology Services and Business Assurance. He has close to 20 years of global experience within the banking industry across Australia and South Africa. Since coming to Australia in 2008, Jeff has been part of the start-up and scale up teams for both UBank and Judo Bank. CEO and Co-Founder of Alex Bank, Simon Beitz, said, “We are delighted to have both Sascha and Jeff on board. Together they have close to 40 years of experience within the banking and digital sectors. They are industry experts, and their expertise will be invaluable as we continue to execute on our growth strategy”. CFO and Co-Founder of Alex Bank , Craig Fenwick added, “2022 is set to be another year of growth for us, we’re scaling our lending business, working towards achieving our full banking licence and we have new products in the pipeline. We’re expanding our reach with the broker network and are laser-focused on delivering the best customer experience. With the appointments of Sascha and Jeff, I’m confident that we have the right executive team in place to deliver on these goals”. Alex Bank’s core mission is to deliver fast, simple, fair, flexible, and human banking to customers and to date has settled over $25 million in loans to high quality borrowers. Alex has also undertaken a limited launch of deposits. Join our Newsletter:

Alex Bank ramps up 2022 growth plans with two executive appointments

Alex Bank Announces Two New Executive Appointments
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Alex Bank, a 100 per cent digital, Australian-based new bank, has ramped up 2022 growth plans announcing two new executive appointments. Alex Bank has recently appointed two new executive team members. Sascha Hunt (Pictured above) has been appointed as chief growth officer and Jeff Nel (Pictured below) as chief operations officer. The appointments come off the back of a strong 2021 for this young, independent bank, which has aimed to differentiate itself from traditional banking services. Over the last year, Alex Bank was granted a restricted banking authority from APRA, began scaling their risk-based personal loan product, onboarded its first major broker aggregator partnership with platform finance and successfully raised $20 million in capital to support growth strategy. Jeff joins Alex Bank from Judo Bank, where he was head of core technology services and business assurance. He has close to 20 years of global experience within the banking industry across Australia and South Africa. Since coming to Australia in 2008, Jeff has been part of the start-up and scale-up teams for both UBank and Judo Bank. Sascha joins the company from Aussie, where she was head of brand and marketing. She has decades of experience growing, building and developing brands in the finance and digital sectors, including senior roles at Allianz, Tabcorp, Google, BT Financial Group, Citibank and ING Direct. Sascha will drive accelerated growth for the multi-award-winning bank through direct-to-consumer and broker channels. CEO and co-founder, Alex Bank, Simon Beitz, said, “We are delighted to have both Sascha and Jeff on board.”
“Together they have close to 40 years of experience within the banking and digital sectors.”
“They are industry experts, and their expertise will be invaluable as we continue to execute on our growth strategy”. CFO and co-founder, Alex Bank, Craig Fenwick, added, “We’re expanding our reach with the broker network and are laser-focused on delivering the best customer experience.”
“With the appointments of Sascha and Jeff, I’m confident that we have the right executive team in place to deliver on these goals”. About Alex Bank
Its core mission is to deliver fast, simple, fair, flexible and human banking to customers. To date, they’ve settled over $25 million in loans to high-quality borrowers.

Alex Bank Announces Two New Executive Appointments

Alex Bank raises over $20 million in Series C funding
Alex Bank raises over $20 million in Series C funding
Alex Bank or “Alex”, has successfully completed a $20 million capital raising, providing the digital bank with additional capital to support its long-term vision of making banking simpler for Australians. The Series C funding round was supported by Alex’s advisors, Clinton Capital Partners and Findex, and values the award-winning bank at more than $120 million. The company is generating revenue, and this capital adds to the $34 million already raised from investors to support its growth strategy. Alex’s latest raise combines follow-on investment from its existing shareholders and new investors, including Washington H. Soul Pattinson, Regal Funds Management, Wunala Capital, and SG Hiscock & Company. Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Alex, Simon Beitz, said, “This latest capital raising is proof of the investment community’s strong support of Alex’s fast, simple and fair offering – something that is sorely lacking in the market.”
Alex’s is delivering to the borrowers that the old banks have forgotten, offering customers risk adjusted loans up to $50,000. Alex is launching additional products to include digital overdrafts and term deposits in the next twelve months and broadening its market to small businesses. It is Australia’s most awarded new bank having received seven awards including a Canstar 5-Star Rating, Money Magazine Non-Bank Personal Lender of the Year as well as awards from Mozo, Ratecity and Infochoice. It was also twice named by comparison site Finder as a finalist in the “Best Risk-Based Personal Loan” award category. Alex distributes its loans via digital channels and via brokers on technology which enables a customer to apply in 3 minutes, an answer in 60 seconds and funding within hours. Alex received its restricted banking license from APRA in July 2021 and is focused on accelerating the growth in its loan book. Funding is available to fuel growth from an increase in the current wholesale facility, and the ramp-up of its note program. Chief Financial Officer and Co-Founder, Craig Fenwick, said, “When combined with the wholesale funding already secured from Sturt Capital, and the performance of our loan product in the market, this equity raise is further testament to the strength of our accelerated growth strategy, and the gap in the market for a lending-led digital bank.”
In line with its growth strategy, the company has also added Chair Greg Moynihan, and Non-Executive Directors Kathy Ostin and Alex Twigg to its Board, all of whom have extensive experience in banking and technology. Join our Newsletter:

Alex Bank raises over $20 million in Series C funding

platform finance

Alex Bank , Australia 's most awarded new bank , today announced its first partnership agreement with the award-winning asset finance aggregator Platform Finance , a subsidiary of the ASX-listed COG Financial Services Limited .

Name	Work History	Title	Status
Simon Beitz	Suncorp Group, and EML Payments	Founder, Chief Executive Officer	Current
Craig Fenwick	Suncorp Group, IBM, and PwC	Founder, Chief Financial Officer	Current
Dr. Chiente Hsu	Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and University of Vienna	Founder, Chief Executive Officer	Current
John Heaton	Heritage Bank, Xstrata, Xstrata, and Oracle	Chief Technology Officer	Current

Name	Simon Beitz	Craig Fenwick	Dr. Chiente Hsu	John Heaton
Work History	Suncorp Group, and EML Payments	Suncorp Group, IBM, and PwC	Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and University of Vienna	Heritage Bank, Xstrata, Xstrata, and Oracle
Title	Founder, Chief Executive Officer	Founder, Chief Financial Officer	Founder, Chief Executive Officer	Chief Technology Officer
Status	Current	Current	Current	Current

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