Banking on Belief: Leeds Digital Festival 2026
Kestrl founder Areeb Siddiqui on building the tech platform for ethical alternative to mainstream banking, and where values-driven finance goes next.
Kestrl is a UK fintech helping over 1.3 million people spend, save, and grow their wealth in line with their beliefs.
It runs a consumer finance app, sells software to banks that want to offer faith-based features, and is now building its own digital bank for launch in the UK with a major Malaysian bank.
Founder and CEO Areeb Siddiqui started it in 2020 after a career in strategy consulting at Deloitte, Alpha FMC and PwC.
He also hosts Muslim Money Talk, a podcast on money, faith, and the people building in this space.
He joins us in Leeds to talk about building in a corner of fintech the industry spent years treating as too small to bother with, and where ethical finance goes next.
What we’ll cover
Why a large customer base went underserved for so long, and the commercial case for changing that
Building a product investors and the wider industry initially dismissed as too niche
What it takes to ship anything inside a regulated, cautious industry
Where ethical and values-driven finance is heading next
There will be a Q&A, food, and time to talk to people afterwards.
Speakers Include:
Areeb Siddiqui, Founder & CEO, Kestrl
Since launching Kestrl in 2020, Areeb has led the business through multiple funding rounds and product launches, and has won multiple awards including Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank’s Ethical Finance Award 2025, Money 20/20 FinTech for Good 2024 and Islam Channel’s Digital Business of The Year 2024.
Before Kestrl, Areeb built a career in strategy consulting for FinTechs at Deloitte, Alpha FMC and most recently at PwC, where he led the digital wealth management team. He specialised in launching robo-advice platforms and devising web3 use cases for major banks and wealth managers.
Areeb holds an MBA from University of Cambridge with a specialism in Digital Transformation, and a BSc in Physics from University College London.
This event is aimed at: Engineers, product managers, designers, founders, and anyone curious about fintech, which simply means technology built for financial services. No finance background needed and terms will be explained as we go.