Open finance startup Ayoconnect’s APIs allow monetary inclusion in Southeast Asia

Focused on Southeast Asia, Ayoconnect’s APIs make it quicker for companies to launch new monetary providers, as a substitute of needing to construct their very own tech infrastructure. It can be licensed by Indonesia’s central financial institution, enabling it to supply extra providers. The open finance startup introduced at this time it has closed a $13 million Series B extension spherical led by SIG Venture Capital, with participation from CE Innovation Capital and returning investor PayU, the funds and fintech enterprise of Prosus. This brings its complete raised to $43 million, together with the oversubscribed first tranche of its Series B, which was led by Tiger Global and closed in January 2022.

Founded in 2016, with a group of about 250 folks, Ayoconnect is presently working towards extra monetary inclusion for Indonesian shoppers and SMEs. It works with regulators and incumbent banks, and was just lately awarded a Bank of Indonesia (BI) Payment Service Provider Category 1 license. Ayoconnect says it’s the solely open finance participant in Indonesia to be licensed by the central financial institution.

Ayoconnect’s new funding might be used for management hiring, and on its Ayoconnect’s product and expertise, together with new options for funds, information and banking and new APIs for account opening and card issuing.

The startup just lately launched automated recurring direct debit with seven of Indonesia’s largest banks (Mandiri, BRI, BNI, CIMB Niaga, Danamon, Bank Syariah Indonesia and Bank Neo Commerce). This permits Ayoconnect’s shoppers to make use of its direct debit API and get the power to make recurring debits from prospects’ financial savings accounts at a number of banks.

Before beginning Ayoconnect, founder and CEO Jakob Rost was a managing director at Lazada. After leaving Lazada, he spent a number of years residing in Indonesia, the place he noticed how the nation may benefit from extra digital monetary inclusion. For instance, it’s the fourth largest nation on this planet by inhabitants, however about half of individuals are unbanked, he mentioned. It additionally has an advanced geography, leading to a weak monetary infrastructure, fragmentation and fewer standardization within the banking sector. Furthermore, Rost added, consumer-facing companies in Indonesia don’t have the digital monetary infrastructure to handle their very own funds whereas serving prospects.

Ayoconnect raised once more so quickly after the preliminary shut of its Series B as a result of it was rising quickly and likewise secured necessary strategic partnerships after receiving its BI license. Rost mentioned the brand new capital will strengthen Ayoconnect’s steadiness sheet and put together it for future development over the subsequent few years.

The platform now serves 200 API prospects, together with giant banks, monetary establishments, tech unicorns and fintechs, and presents greater than 4,000 embedded finance merchandise. Its APIs are cowl two classes: open banking APIs and fee providers APIs, with the aim of constructing probably the most full open finance stack in Southeast Asia.

Some examples of monetary providers that Ayoconnect’s shoppers have launched embrace the aforementioned direct debit, embedded finance (it partnered with PT. Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI), the state-owned operator of railways in Indonesia) to launch new ticketing and productiveness options within the KAI Access mobile app, which allows customers to purchase cellphone credit, web information subscriptions and electrical energy tokens). It additionally partnered with Bank Syariah, Indonesia’s largest Islamic financial institution, to add new digital and mobile capabilities with the aim of larger monetary inclusion and financial development amongst its prospects.

Other Southeast Asian startups within the open finance area embrace Brick, Finverse, Brankas and Finantier as opponents? One manner that Ayoconnect differentiate is by being the one licensed open finance platform in Indonesia, which allows it to supply options that aren’t obtainable in the marketplace but.

“While open banking and open finance are reasonably well-established in Europe and the US, the industry is still very young in Southeast Asia but is growing rapidly. In Indonesia, hundreds of millions are embracing new digital services while many more are still without access to basic financial services like bank accounts,” mentioned Rost.

“As such, there is huge potential for open finance in the region and a ton of opportunities for the sector to grow further. We’ve been really excited to see the activity in the space and to be playing a role in helping to move the ecosystem forward.”

In a press release, SIG Venture Capital’s Akshay Bajaj mentioned the Ayoconnect group “have been running high volume APIs for years and are incredibly well positioned to help customers launch compelling and profitable use cases quickly and securely. As a result of its expanding capabilities, Ayoconnect continues to experience strong and growing demand from banks and API clients. We love their vision and believe they have the potential to transform and enhance the future of payments in Southeast Asia.”