Accounts receivable automation, good for SMEs and for banks, Jayashree Anand, Regional Head, Hylobiz

By Robin Amlot

The promise of a unified FinTech platform that solves cashflow, finance and growth challenges for SMEs, simplifying business processes and with the potential to ease access to working capital.

Hylobiz has operations in India, where it trades under the name VICCAS, in two GCC markets, UAE and Oman, and in the US, Singapore and Indonesia. The firm is part of the Vayana Network, one of the largest supply chain finance and trade credit providers in India. IBS Intelligence spoke to Jayashree Anand, Regional Head MEA & Strategic Partnerships for Hylobiz.

How does the integration process work for a bank that’s looking to partner with Hylobiz?

“Hilobiz plays a unique role wherein we act with banking partners in terms of commercialisation. We understand that systems and processes differ from company to company. So, we have APIs available. We have multiple integration layers available. We are pre-integrated with 20+ ERPs that are commonly used by most companies across various geographies. This gives us flexibility in terms of connecting with any business directly. The Hylobiz platform seamlessly integrates with the business processes of an SME/ corporate for their invoice generation/management, collections and reconciliation processes.

“From the banking partner side, what we do is we consume open banking APIs. This means an end-to-end process is covered through our open banking integration, wherein we actually consume APIs on account transfers and then balance information. We have a very rich virtual account module, which we have also enabled for our banking partners.

“There is no CapEx investment, we offer a subscription-based platform. And we manage and run the platform with light integration. Basically, once the integration is done with the banking partners, we then offload the work of the technology team of the bank, and then we connect with every other business that’s required for the banking partner. Our bank partners get access to the complete business insights for a given company as well their vendors/suppliers to be able to increase their product offering to the wider network.”

What kind of tailored financing programs does Hylobiz offer through your banking partners?

“Based on the real time transactional data flowing through the Hylobiz platform, banks can structure finance products in the form of a commercial card (with limits), as an overdraft, invoice discounting etc. Hylobiz allows integration with required systems on the bank side as well as the complete loan origination and disbursement journey for the user on the same platform.

“To give a background in terms of the MEA region, we know more than 50% of GDP comes from SMEs but the reality is, if you take UAE market, less than 4% of funding comes from proper banking channels for these SMEs. So, there is a huge funding gap and credit gap, which we are trying to address through Hylobiz. For firms to get credit, the first stage is to understand what the business is doing and help it in sharing the data that is required for financial institutions to offer them financing.

“We work with SMEs, assisting them with cash flow automation. We help them in terms of the whole buyer-seller management, invoice distribution. We get data in terms of collections. We get data from eCommerce channels. We get data from their accounting platform. We also get information from the likes of GST or VAT, and bank statements. With this information, we then equip our banking partners to offer tailored solutions. Trusted data gives comfort to financial institutions. Reliable data from a reliable source creates a win-win situation for everyone.”

How does Hylobiz ensure solutions are customised to the needs of different businesses?

“The Hylobiz platform is built on microservices architecture. We completely understand and appreciate that each SME/corporate may have different tools, workflows and processes to execute their day-to-day operations. So, businesses can pick and choose the required flows and consume specific microservices relevant to their processes. For an SME it could be a plug-and-play solution – they connect to our platform, integrate their accounting platform, and depending on what services they want to enable, it is up to them on what they want to do. Do I want to send an invoice? Do I want to send a digital payment link? Or do I want to connect with a banking partner? Do I want to connect with my accounting platform? And, of course, there is no investment in terms of technology or resources, because it’s plug-and-play.

“For corporates, we have APIs and integration layers available to facilitate a tailored financial process – it may be bespoke integration that is required. It could be a different level of data at an RM level, different data at a unit head level, different data at the head of credit level. We have capabilities that are built around whatever is the bank’s requirement.”

What are the key challenges you’ve faced in bridging the gap between businesses and banks?

“The biggest challenge we have observed is that different businesses have their specific requirements and banks find it challenging to serve these complex requirements customer to customer. That is where our core architecture and microservices implementation come in handy to be able to help (1) businesses for their customised needs and (2) the banks not having to integrate with many businesses. We act like a middle layer, we address the needs of the SMEs, and, at the same time we cover what is required for the bank.”

Can you offer any case studies that illustrate what we’ve been talking about?

“We have SMEs in India and in UAE from the travel industry, tourism, FMCG, logistics, and distribution. These are the type of SME customers who automatically connect with our platform. They start with the basic functions, sending invoices, distribution, reminders, collection, and reconciliation.

“One recent launch was with a large multidisciplinary corporate in UAE. There were some 10-15 people involved in managing invoices and sending statements of account. We automated the whole process of data coming in from multiple sources, being able to pick not just the invoice, we also collected statements of account, deliveries, etc., anything that needs to be picked up along with the invoice distribution process.

“Invoices and the required documents go out automatically. We have automated a whole reminder engine for this company. We have also enabled the reverse integration of the data. So, you send the data, distribute, digitise the collection, pick up that information, reverse sync with the ERP, and show a real-time reconciliation dashboard.

“With one of the largest banks in Oman, we have integrated alongside their cash and transaction management solution. So, any corporate coming in via single sign-on, would come into the corporate internet banking, log in, and all the processes which I spoke about in terms of ERP, invoice distribution, etc. are available in an omnichannel collection dashboard view. This also helps the bank in terms of enhancing cash management.”

How does tech enhance the user experience for both banks and businesses?

“One of our biggest USPs is, we work with customers in multiple markets, and we also work with banking partners. This helps us in terms of getting market feedback and that translates to ongoing development. Our product has evolved multi-fold in the last couple of years. For a banking partner, one of the biggest advantages of our technology is as a differentiator. We connect via APIs and then we help in offering value-added services.

“With Hylobiz the bank gets information on a real-time basis and can know the pulse of the business. For banks, we can replicate offerings for our banking partners across multiple markets – everything in terms of technology, including real-time feedback from the customer, plugging into the system in terms of product development, open banking, APIs, microservice architecture. Also, another critical point is in terms of hosting as per the needs of bank, whether the institution wants it in-house or via cloud-based hosting, whatever the strategy of the bank, we can accommodate.”