Swipey aims to build customer-centric digital banking services for SEA’s SMEs

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Swipey’s team pose for a group photo. Swipey’s mission to level the fintech playing field for SMEs.

KUALA LUMPUR: Fintech company Swipey Digital Services Sdn Bhd (Swipey), which aims to build customer-centric digital banking services for Southeast Asia’s underserved modern small and medium enterprises (SMEs), has emerged among the Top 10 in the Alpha Startups accelerator programme.

The win means Swipey will be participating in the final pitch session at Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM)’s flagship fintech event MyFintech Week, from January 24 to 28.

In line with MyFintech Week 2022’s theme of Advancing Digitalisation for Recovery, Sustainability and Inclusion, this year’s Alpha Startups programme focuses on unearthing startups with the potential to disrupt the financial services scene and digitalise financial solutions for individuals and SMEs.

Given the rapid acceleration of digitisation in the past couple of years, SMEs are faced with juggling multiple business apps, hardware and cloud solutions for their day-to-day operations, in addition to existing economic headwinds.

Swipey said it is able to streamline and simplify a modern SME’s digital business needs on a single dashboard, while providing enterprises with easy payment and expense management solutions, so business owners can concentrate on core business activities.

Swipey’s mission to level the fintech playing field for SMEs aligns with MyFintech Week 2022’s emphasis on the role digital technology plays in reimagining the structure of finance towards a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable economic future.

Swipey chief executive officer and co-founder Kalyana Mohan Teagarajan said: “We’re here to help SMEs focus on building their businesses. Swipey effectively removes common pain points by digitalising SMEs’ backend financial operations and optimising operating costs.

“On a wider scale, we want to build customer-centric digital banking services for Southeast Asia’s underserved modern SMEs.

“As SME owners ourselves, we are all too familiar with the stress that comes with managing expenses, having experienced this pain point ourselves.

“The problem is not unsurmountable – a solution exists. We just need to present this solution in the most accessible way to SME owners who need it most.”

Swipey’s research found that 94 per cent of SMEs prefer having a dedicated company payment card to manage business expenses with segregation, governance and controls. However, only eight per cent have access to a corporate card issued by a traditional financial institution.

“Swipey bridges this gap by issuing next generation corporate cards and offering centralised and transparent expense monitoring and management.

“This is just one example in our broader goal to help SMEs dispense with the headache of managing company finances using our digital platform, thus enabling them to concentrate on what really matters – growing their business,” Kalyana added.

The fintech startup plans to build on these corporate card and expense management solutions with more sophisticated, holistic fintech offerings. Ultimately, Swipey aims to be Asia’s leading fintech for modern SMEs, with all-in-one digital payment and tracking solutions.