Open secures SME business banking partnership with Visa

Indian-based platform Open, which offers a business banking service for SMEs and start-ups, has announced a strategic partnership with Visa that is designed to enhance its business banking proposition for SMEs. The partnership will enable Open to launch a suite of products that include a business credit card for SMEs, payment gateway acquiring and real time payments.

The business card from Open is designed to help start-ups qualify based on funding rather than credit history. The card comes with a suite of expense management tools that should help businesses manage their expenses and payouts. It can be issued to employees, enables managers to set limits and is integrated with Whatsapp for seamless expense filing. The credit card also comes with a reward programme that lets start-ups earn points for their spend which can be redeemed for various software subscriptions, cloud hosting and discounts on co-working spaces.

Apart from the business card, the partnership with Visa will enable Open to enhance Layer, its API banking suite, through new features such as real-time payments settlement and refunds. Layer is a programmable bank account for developers to integrate banking into their business and product flows. The current account comes integrated with an advanced developer friendly payment gateway with features such as tokenisation, real-time payment settlements and instant refunds.