Aspire, Southeast Asia’s top all-in-one finance operating system has partnered with Know Your Customer, a renowned RegTech supplier, to safely enable access to its financial products for the region’s underserved SMEs and company owners.

Over 140 million people are employed by the 70 million micro, small, and medium-sized firms (SMEs) in Southeast Asia, which make up 99 percent of all businesses in the region. Additionally, tens of thousands of new SMEs and start-ups are registered every day: Recent research* has shown that during the previous year for which statistics were available, an average of 9% of all businesses present in company registrations were incorporated.

Financial services for these businesses, such as business accounts, loans, credit cards, and a platform to manage their receivables and payables, are frequently urgently needed. Despite this, many of them still have trouble accessing financially sound goods because it can be difficult for financial institutions to confirm the shareholding structures of these organizations. In these situations, any FI wanting to serve new companies not yet listed in traditional KYC databases must have real-time access to company registers.

Together, Know Your Customer and Aspire will be able to meet this rapidly expanding need while adhering to all national and international regulatory standards.

“At Aspire, we are always looking for ways to support our customers, and make sure they have a seamless onboarding journey with us. We strive to make alliances with companies that share the same vision and can assist us in providing our services in full compliance with the applicable regulations. Know Your Customer’s RegTech solution has helped us to achieve this incredible milestone in a very short time span.”

                                                                  Tarini Ponniah, Head of Compliance of Aspire.

Through Know Your Customer’s digital solutions and unmatched coverage of real-time registry connections in APAC and globally, the new partnership will improve Aspire’s ability to digitize and streamline the crucial phase of corporate onboarding for SMEs, entrepreneurs, and corporate clients throughout the entire region.

Aspire was established in 2018 to offer working capital loans for small to medium-sized businesses. Since then, it has expanded its offering of services to include multi-currency accounts and cards, cost management, payable management, and receivable management solutions, all in one account.

“Aspire has quickly become a powerful force in the APAC Fintech space and   we are delighted to be playing such a strategic part in their current and future growth. I strongly believe that building solid synergies between disruptive Fintechs and innovative RegTech providers is key to drive the whole industry forward and this partnership is a perfect example of two innovative companies coming together to meet a pressing market need. We look forward to supporting Aspire’s business growth through our modular solution and unparalleled coverage of real-time registry connections globally.”

                                        Claus Christensen, CEO & Co-Founder of Know Your Customer.

An award-winning regulatory technology (RegTech) startup called Know Your Customer specializes in modular compliance solutions that let businesses create the corporate onboarding procedure that best suits their particular requirements. The business recently declared that it had expanded its real-time coverage to include 500+ corporate registrations in 123 different countries, making it the leading KYB provider in the sector.

“The Government of Ireland, via Enterprise Ireland are proud to support innovative companies like Know Your Customer on their expansion. The signing today signifies their commitment to raising the bar for RegTech in Southeast Asia and we congratulate them wholeheartedly.”

                                                Kevin Ryan, Director South-East Asia of Enterprise Ireland.