APIs Unlock Financing For Underserved SMBs

Open banking-fueled FinTech solutions continue to explore more pain points to solve for businesses. This week’s look at the latest in Open Banking and bank-FinTech collaboration finds tools to connect small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to financing and ease integrated payments for third parties.

Chase Collaborates With Tock On Restaurant Recovery

Chase is collaborating with restaurant technology firm Tock to help businesses in the industry with their recovery efforts. In a joint announcement, Chase and Tock said they are teaming up to help small restaurants access Tock’s technology, which provides reservation, takeout and delivery services. When that restaurant links its Chase business checking account to the Tock platform, it will receive an offer to receive up to $1,200 to pay for monthly subscription service fees when it signs up for a yearlong agreement with Tock. “In many ways, reopening is more difficult than the initial shock of the pandemic,” said Nick Kokonas, CEO of Tock.

CSI Links Financial Institutions To Centralized Loan Platform

Computer Services, Inc., also known as CSI, has announced the launch of its CSI Loan Marketplace, a solution designed for financial institutions to participate in loan transactions. In its announcement, CSI said the platform allows banks to “overcome inefficient procedures, rebalance their portfolios and optimally align with their target relationship profiles.” Designed for any loan product, the platform aims to help financial institutions diversify their portfolios and expand into new, loan-driven revenue streams while automating workflows that can help financial institutions (FIs) identify which loan transactions might be appropriate for them.

GoCardless Revs Up Open Banking Efforts

Account-to-account business payments startup GoCardless is gearing up to introduce more open banking-powered services and products for its small business clients, and it has recently announced a new partnership with Pennylane to support recurring payment collections for joint users. Their partnership will use GoCardless’ existing bank debit network, which will integrate with Pennylane’s accounting and financial management platform. Pennylane recently launched its own subscription management tool, and by connecting with GoCardless, the solution can streamline recurring payment collections by automatically debiting customers upon payment due dates. GoCardless said in its announcement that the collaboration means small businesses no longer have to use manual tools to manage payment dates or remind customers to make payments.

Dinie Raises Seed Funding For API-Fueled SMB Finance

Embedded finance startup Dinie, based in Brazil raised $3.8 million in seed funding for its technology that uses application programming interfaces (APIs) and an open banking framework to embed small business finance in third-party platforms. Accion Venture Lab and K50 Ventures led the round, which also saw participation from Flourish Ventures, Domo Invest and Tribe Capital, as well as individual investors. Dinie said the investment will enable the company to provide its API to more third-party platforms interested in connecting their small business users and customers to financing from directly within their portals. “Dinie’s vision is to enable large ecosystems such as eCommerce marketplaces to potentially become the ‘bank branch’ of MSMEs [micro, small and medium enterprises], where financial products are fully distributed and contextual, and integrated with MSMEs specific business journeys,” said Suzy Ferreira, Dinie’s founder and CEO, in a statement.

Prometeo Debuts Interbank Payment API

Open banking FinTech Prometeo has announced the launch of its interbank payments API, a solution designed for Colombian businesses to access payments infrastructure and support workflow automation. Reports in Enter.co noted that the API has already integrated with a variety of banks across Latin America that collectively hold 80 percent of the market share in the region. As its API expands its connectivity with financial institutions, Prometeo is looking to help third parties streamline interbank payments for their own customers with broader efforts to support bank interoperability and drive open banking in Colombia and throughout the Latin American region.