Neo-banking platform Open and Visa partner to launch a suite of innovative products for SME banking
The partnership will enable Open to launch a suite of innovative products that include a business credit card for SMEs, payment gateway acquiring, and real-time payments.
SME-focussed neo-banking platform Open today announced a strategic partnership with Visa, the global leader in payments technology, to enhance its business banking proposition for SMEs.
In a company statement, the fintech startup said the partnership will enable Open to launch a suite of innovative products that include a business credit card for SMEs, payment gateway acquiring, and real-time payments.
Open added that its business credit card will be a first-of-its-kind card specifically designed to help SMEs and startups qualify based on funding rather than credit history.
Anish Achuthan, Co-founder and CEO, Open, said:
“This partnership will enable Open to leverage the leadership and expertise Visa have in the payments space to co-create and innovate new solutions on credit, expense management & payment processing for small businesses.”
Open's statement said its card comes with a suite of expense management tools that will help businesses manage their expenses and payouts and can be issued to employees, set limits and comes integrated with Whatsapp for seamless expense filing.
The credit card also comes with an innovative reward program that lets startups earn points for their spend, which can be redeemed for various software subscriptions, cloud hosting and discounts on co-working spaces.
T.R. Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India and South Asia, Visa said, “The partnership with Open will allow us and our banking partners to empower small businesses by enabling safe, reliable and convenient payment experiences for them. “
Apart from the business card, the partnership with Visa will enable Open to enhance the Open API banking suite 'Layer' through new features such as real time payments settlement and refunds. Layer is a programmable bank account for developers to integrate banking into their business and product flows, Open said in a statement.
Further, the current account will come integrated with an advanced developer friendly payment gateway with innovative features like tokenisation, real time payment settlements, and instant refunds.