Open Banking Bolsters Corporate FinServ, From India To Italy

Open banking is a global phenomenon, and as more banks and FinTechs collaborate to unlock customer data for enriched banking experiences, partners are increasingly eyeing small businesses and corporates as key targets of innovation. This week’s bank-FinTech collaboration roundup explores the latest tie-ups from Italy to India, and beyond.

Finastra Enables Global Payments For Mizrahi-Tehafot Bank

Israel’s Mizrahi-Tehafot Bank is working with Finastra to bolster its cross-border payment capabilities, the firms recently revealed. In a press release, the companies said Finastra will integrate its Fusion Payments To Go solution, designed for smaller financial institutions looking to strengthen their global payment capabilities. The tool supports faster cross-border transactions with support for the ISO 20022 messaging standard. “Until now, we have been using in-house solutions for processing payments,” said Dudi Avni, head of delivery channels applications at Mizrahi-Tehafot Bank. “Both retail and corporate clients are increasingly demanding a more seamless payment experience and a broader set of payment options.”

Finastra Bolsters Commercial Lending Offering

In addition to working with Mizrahi-Tehafot Bank, Finastra is looking ahead toward more collaborations with lenders as it enhances its commercial lending solution. In partnership with the Risk Management Association (RMA), Finastra is looking to help commercial lenders elevate their risk management capabilities and advance commercial banking risk rating frameworks in the U.S. RMA is integrating its Dual Risk Rating scorecard technology within Fusion CreditQuest, allowing banks using the corporate lending portal to strengthen underwriting capabilities, which RMA said is key to supporting small and medium-sized business recovery.

AccessPay Embraces Open Banking For Treasurers

In partnership with open banking infrastructure provider Yapily, AccessPay is working to unlock corporate banking data to support treasurers in their pursuit of real-time cash visibility and cash flow management. AccessPay is enabling corporates to integrate their bank account information to consolidate data within AccessPay, rather than having to manually toggle between a variety of accounts. According to Yapily’s announcement, “this is the first use-case of open banking in corporate cash management to be brought to market, and demonstrates how tech innovation is creating better services for businesses.”

ForwardAI Unlocks SMB Data For Lenders

Like AccessPay, ForwardAI is embracing the opportunity in unlocking business data. Yet instead of unlocking bank data, the FinTech is looking to take advantage of financial information siloed within third-party platforms of small and medium-sized businesses for the purpose of faster, more secure underwriting. The company launched ForwardAI Precise, an API that allows banks to unlock SMB clients’ FinTech data to enhance loan underwriting with real-time visibility into finances, and an enriched view into historical data for more accurate forecasting. “By streamlining access to accurate, normalized data in real time, ForwardAI Precise is ultimately fast-tracking growth throughout the SMB market at an incredibly critical time — the faster that businesses can get loans, the faster they can succeed,” ForwardAI Co-founder and CEO Nick Chandi said in the release.

ICICI Bank Taps Decentro For Business Banking APIs

India’s ICICI Bank is looking to deepen its relationship with third-party FinTechs and businesses through API integrations, and has enlisted the help of API banking platform Decentro to make it happen. Together, the companies are promoting ICICI Bank’s various APIs tailored for business banking services, including payments and accounting. Decentro is bundling those APIs for third-party FinTechs and corporates to unlock ICICI Bank data. “With this new product, we are looking to empower existing as well as new categories of ventures like SME Service Providers, accounting firms, B2B marketplaces and more across the country,” said Rohit Taneja, founder and CEO of Decentro.

Banca Selle, Workinvoice Collaborate On Corporate Finserv

Over in Italy, Banca Sella is working with FinTech Workinvoice to bolster the FI’s business banking capabilities. The partners are collaborating on the development of digital solutions designed for corporates, with a focus on financing. Their first joint offering will be a factoring service, followed by a reverse factoring tool, to inject supply chains with working capital. “Banca Sella was the first Italian institution to grasp the value that open banking could generate for customers,” said Doris Messina, head of digital transformation and marketing at Banca Sella, adding that “collaborations of this kind will make the difference in the future and will allow us to offer even more rapid and effective solutions.”