United States-based fintech firm Vemanti Group has chosen United Kingdom-based financial software company Finastra to help build Southeast Asia’s first small and medium-sized enterprise-focused neobank.

Initially focusing on Vietnam, Vemanti will use Finastra’s next-generation core banking solution, Fusion Essence, as the platform for new products and services aimed at increasing financial inclusion in the underserved SME finance market, Finastra said in a statement.

According to the statement, Vemanti has also tapped Finastra’s partner ecosystem to select United Kingdom-based finance technology provider Lendscape’s invoice finance and supply chain finance technology.

“SMEs across the region are being underserved by traditional finance, which generally lacks the ability or desire to accurately assess the creditworthiness of SMEs,

“These businesses struggle to meet collateral requirements that tend to be designed for large corporations, leaving many unable to access formal financial services,” said Tan Tran, Chief Executive Officer, Vemanti.

Leveraging technology and creativity, he said the firm aims to solve these problems by offering innovative finance solutions.

“We have chosen to work with Finastra not just as a technology vendor, but to leverage their deep, broad experience in banking, as well as their significant footprint in the region,

“Finastra’s open ecosystem approach has already brought Lendscape’s leading technology to us and we look forward to expanding our offerings quickly with Finastra’s partnership,” he added.

According to the statement, Finastra’s next-generation core banking solution, Fusion Essence, will provide the technology platform for Vemanti’s business and technology team to build and expand on product offerings, as well as the advanced capability for Vemanti to launch a full digital bank at scale.

Meanwhile, John Guest, Managing Director, Universal Banking, Asia Pacific (APAC), Finastra, said that Vemanti’s bold strategy aims to solve a clear market need and will connect the best of Vietnam to the world.

“Choosing a software as a service (SaaS) cloud platform from Finastra means Vemanti can concentrate on its business, customers and product innovation, whilst we take care of their technology,

“We are also pleased to have this opportunity to demonstrate with Lendscape the enhanced value that technology partnerships can offer the global financial services sector,” he added.

Using embedded advanced analytics and technology to improve credit decisioning and processing, Lendscape’s solution will enable Vemanti to offer personalized SME finance that goes beyond traditional commercial loans, such as small unsecured, short-term loans and invoice finance solutions.

“We are excited to participate in this opportunity to support Vemanti in its efforts to bring finance to SMEs in Vietnam,” said Kevin Day, Chief Executive Officer at Lendscape.

“SMEs are the lifeblood of all economies and offering providers in the region access to our specialist invoice and supply chain finance solutions will enable Vemanti to support digitalization and a better customer experience, unlocking the potential of these businesses,” he added.

Vemanti is fintech company that seeks to establish a strong foothold in the emerging and high-growth markets of Southeast Asia through impact-driven financial services targeting the underserved.

With Vietnam as the focal starting point, its goal is to be a valuable financial partner for the SMEs throughout Southeast Asia, helping their business become borderless and together shaping the region into a global economic powerhouse of growing supply chains and manufacturing.

Finastra is a global provider of financial software applications and marketplaces, and launched the leading open platform for innovation, FusionFabric.cloud, in 2017.

It serves institutions of all sizes, providing award-winning software solutions and services across lending, payments, treasury and capital markets and universal banking (retail, digital and commercial banking) for banks to support direct banking relationships and grow through indirect channels, such as embedded finance and banking as a service.

Lendscape is the world’s leading technology provider for all forms of secured finance.

With over 45 years of experience and in-depth industry understanding, its dynamic team has designed, developed and delivered secured lending technology to over 50 markets and some of the worlds’ banking and financial services providers.

Lendscape supports a range of working capital and asset finance solutions such as factoring, invoice discounting, supply chain finance, asset-based lending as well as asset finance and many other forms of specialist finance.

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