Innovations in SME Management

Member CreditEase, a Beijing-based leading FinTech conglomerate in China, announced today that its CreditEase FinTech Investment Fund (CEFIF), participated in the recent $10 million Series A funding round of Railsbank, a London-based Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) platform that promises to give technology companies access to financial services using its API platform. Railsbank already has several clients across the UK and Europe and is in the process of opening its Asia-Pacific office in Singapore.

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Reserving equity crowdfunding rounds exclusively for customers is emerging as a popular method of fundraising. Read more here.

Article via Medici.

Washington, D.C., September 5th, 2019 – MIZA became the newest member of the SME Finance Forum, a global membership network that brings together financial institutions, technology companies, and development finance institutions to share knowledge, spur innovation, and promote the growth of SMEs. 

The phenomenon can be traced to the development of emerging economies that picked up just as smartphones were catching on. Millions of people in Asia's emerging markets missed the personal computer era but have leapfrogged straight to smartphones, and using apps is second nature to them.

Read more about WeChat and Go-Jek here.

This paper shows that taxation on mobile phone airtime and financial transactions may not expand the tax base significantly but, rather, may reverse the gains on retail electronic payments and financial inclusion. A higher tax rate on low-level retail electronic transactions mostly levied on low-income earners that are sensitive to transaction costs may discourage the use of mobile phone-based transactions, incentivizing them to revert to cash transactions to evade taxes and so less tax revenue. This trend will deal a big blow to the financial inclusion success witnessed so far.

MEKAR, an online platform for funding Indonesian MSME loans, was recognised as the Best P2P Platform in Indonesia at the Global Wealth and Society Awards 2019.

MEKAR’s CEO Pandu Aditya Kristy received the award on behalf of the company in a glittering ceremony at the JW Marriott Hotel, Jakarta, yesterday (22/08/19).  “As per Based on our impact in Indonesia, loan safety, and more. Well done to Mekar's team and our Lending Partners financing women's businesses”, said Thierry Sanders, Co-Founder of Mekar.

The report contextualises the role of data analytics in the ongoing digital revolution and its potential for SME performance, including for enhancing SME productivity. It presents evidence on the use of data analytics in SMEs, discusses main internal and external barriers to the use of data analytics by SMEs, and illustrates policy approaches to foster data-driven decision-making in SMEs.

Read the report here