Summary
Welcount is using Microsoft Azure and AI to expand access to financial services for newcomers across Europe. With support from Microsoft for Startups, the company is building a secure, scalable fintech platform designed around the needs of customers traditional financial systems may overlook.
When a researcher relocating to France needed a French bank account before she could begin her new job, Welcount helped verify her information and open an account in less than 24 hours. It’s one example of a challenge many newcomers face when arriving in a new country: accessing basic financial services without established local documentation or financial history.
For Welcount founder and CEO, Rooh Savar, that challenge is personal. After arriving in France as a refugee, he experienced firsthand how difficult it can be to access the financial services needed to receive a salary, secure housing, and begin building a life in a new country.
With support from Microsoft for Startups, Welcount has built its platform on Microsoft Azure and is using AI to help address those barriers. Its journey offers lessons for other founders building technology for customers that existing systems may not have been designed to serve.
Build around a real customer barrier
Savar founded Welcount to create a more accessible path into the financial system for people arriving in a new country. Today, the platform serves international professionals, students, researchers, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
While every customer’s circumstances are different, the underlying challenge is often the same: navigating a financial system that was not designed with newcomers in mind. Welcount is focused on removing those barriers so they can more easily access the financial tools they need to begin working, secure housing, receive payments, and build their lives in a new country.
Build innovation and trust together
Building a financial platform for newcomers requires security, compliance, identity verification, and scalability alongside a strong customer experience.
Welcount chose Microsoft Azure as the foundation for its platform, supporting its onboarding, identity verification, and AI capabilities. The company’s relationship with Microsoft expanded through participation in Microsoft GenAI Studio at Station F, where the team explored new ways to incorporate generative AI into customer-facing experiences and internal operations.
Today, Welcount uses AI across compliance workflows, identity verification, customer support, and product innovation.
Microsoft didn’t just provide infrastructure. Through Azure, Microsoft for Startups, and Gen AI Studio, we gained access to technology, expertise, and a community that helped us accelerate our vision.
Rooh Savar, Founder and CEO, Welcount
Welcount also works with Visa for payment infrastructure and Okali, a Crédit Agricole company, for banking-as-a-service capabilities. The company has worked closely with French regulators, including the Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR), to ensure its onboarding and identity verification processes meet the requirements of a regulated financial institution.
Use AI to solve the next customer problem
Opening a bank account is only the beginning. Newcomers may also need to understand unfamiliar banking norms, fees, spending habits, and financial products.
To help address this challenge, Welcount developed its AI Expense Companion. Built using Azure AI capabilities, the tool analyzes spending patterns and provides personalized guidance designed to help users make informed decisions from day one.
The platform supports multiple languages and takes cultural differences into account, offering recommendations tailored to each user’s circumstances as they adapt to a new financial environment.
For founders, the approach offers a useful lesson: solving one customer pain point can reveal the next opportunity to create value.
Design for customers existing systems may overlook
Welcount’s focus on accessibility also extends to refugees and asylum seekers.
Many traditional financial institutions rely on identity verification processes built around national passports and government-issued IDs. Refugees and asylum seekers may not have access to those documents, creating another barrier to financial services.
Working with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Welcount has developed specialized identity verification capabilities that support refugees and asylum seekers using United Nations issued documentation. The approach helps more people access the financial tools needed to work, rent housing, receive payments, and rebuild their lives.
Scaling financial inclusion across Europe
Welcount has received recognition for its work in financial inclusion and innovation, including being named Microsoft France’s Impact Partner of the Year in 2024.
In the GenAI cohort, Welcount is really very unique and sets itself apart in several ways. I think what really makes this company special is the combination of frontier AI applied to a problem that impacts people on a daily basis, without many alternative solutions. At Station F, we pride ourselves on being the home of founders from 70 different countries and we have seen the difficulties with obtaining a bank account first hand. This is exactly the type of solution that we seek to support on campus.
Roxanne Varza, Director, Station F
Looking ahead, Welcount plans to continue expanding across France and Europe while investing in deeper AI personalization, enhanced onboarding experiences, and broader support for international workers, students, refugees, and other newcomers. The company’s goal is to help more than one million users access financial services by 2031.
What founders can learn from Welcount
Welcount’s journey offers three lessons for founders building AI products in complex or regulated industries:
- Build around a specific customer barrier. Start with a clearly defined problem and build the technology around addressing it.
- Treat trust as part of the product. In regulated industries, customer experience, security, identity verification, and compliance need to evolve together.
- Look beyond the first problem you solve. Addressing one customer need can reveal opportunities to create additional value.
Build what’s next with Microsoft for Startups
Welcount is one example of how founders are using Azure and AI to address real customer challenges while building for scale.
Microsoft for Startups helps early-stage startups build fast, scale smart, and sell more with Startup credits, AI technologies, technical guidance, and go-to-market opportunities. Apply for Microsoft for Startups today.
