Know Your Customer Raises the Bar for the Regtech Industry in Southeast Asia with Fintech Partnerships

Strivethe all-in-one finance operating system for growing businesses in Southeast Asia, has teamed up with regtech provider Know Your Customer to facilitate secure access to its financial products for underserved SMEs and entrepreneurs in the region.

It is estimated that there are 70 million micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Southeast Asia today, employing over 140 million people and accounting for 99 percent of all businesses in the region. In addition, thousands of start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises are registered every day: recent research has revealed that an average of nine percent of all entities present in the company registers were incorporated during the last year for which data were available.

These companies often have an urgent need for financial services such as business accounts, loans, credit cards and a platform to manage receivables and debts. Despite this, access to viable financial products remains difficult for many of them due to the challenges of financial institutions that want to verify these companies’ share structures. In these cases, it is important to have real-time access to company records for any FI wishing to service new companies that are not yet present in conventional KYC databases.

By working together, Know Your Customer and Aspire will now be able to capture this rapidly growing demand in full compliance with local and international regulatory requirements.

The new partnership will strengthen Aspire’s ability to digitize and streamline the crucial stage of business onboarding for SMEs, entrepreneurs and corporate customers across the region through Know Your Customer’s digital solutions and unrivaled coverage of real-time registry connections in APAC and globally.

Founded in 2018 to provide working capital loans to small and medium-sized businesses, Aspire now offers a portfolio of services to over 10,000 businesses across the region, including multi-currency accounts and cards, expense management, payments administration and receivables management – ​​all on one account.

Know Your Customer is an award-winning regulatory technology (regtech) company specializing in modular compliance solutions that enable businesses to build the corporate onboarding process that best suits their unique needs. The company recently announced the expansion of its real-time coverage to 500+ company registries in 123 countries worldwide, officially becoming the #1 KYB provider in the industry.

Tarini Ponniahhead of compliance for Aspire, commented: “At Aspire, we are always looking for ways to support our customers and ensure they have a seamless onboarding journey with us. We strive to form alliances with companies that share the same vision and can help us provide our services in full compliance with current regulations. Know Your Customer’s regtech solution has helped us achieve this incredible milestone in a very short time.”

Claus ChristensenCEO and co-founder of Know Your Customer, added: “Aspire has quickly become a powerful force in the APAC fintech space and we are excited to play such a strategic role in their current and future growth. I strongly believe that building solid synergies between disruptive fintechs and innovative regtech providers is key to driving the entire industry forward, and this partnership is a perfect example of two innovative companies coming together to address 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.”

Kevin RyanDirector of South-East Asia of Enterprise Ireland added, “The Government of Ireland, through Enterprise Ireland is proud to support innovative companies like Know Your Customer in their expansion. The signing today signifies their commitment to raising the bar for regtech in the South East -Asia, and we congratulate them wholeheartedly.”