In order to enhance the business banking proposition for SMEs, Open, a Bangalore-based startup that runs a Neo-bank, has announced a partnership with Visa, a global leader in the payment technology.
“The partnership will enable Open to launch a suite of innovative products that include a business credit card for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), payment gateway acquiring, and real-time payments,” the company said in a statement.
“The business credit card will be a first of its kind specifically designed to help SMEs and startups qualify based on funding rather than credit history,” the statement added.
“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,” said Anish Achuthan, Co-founder and CEO, Open.
“The 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 company said in a statement.
The credit card will also come with an innovative reward program which will help startups to earn points on their spend. The startups can redeem for various software subscriptions, cloud hosting, and discounts on co-working spaces.
“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,” said T.R. Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India, and South Asia, Visa.
“The partnership with Visa will also help Open to enhance the Open API banking suite ‘Layer’ through new features such as real-time payments settlement and refunds. The layer is a programmable bank account for developers to integrate banking into their business and product flow,” the startup company Open said in a statement.
