The Monday Roundup: what we are watching this week | November 27th

By Puja Sharma

The Monday Roundup sets the scene for the week’s biggest news stories, industry deals, and upcoming events. For Prime subscribers only.

Holistic digital supply chain financing

Mastercard has announced a collaboration with U GRO Capital, an NBFC specialising in MSME financing, to extend its financing solution to small businesses in India that require financial support to maintain and grow their operations.

This strategic collaboration between Mastercard and U GRO Capital aims to address this challenge by enabling a holistic digital supply chain financing solution for millions of small businesses in India.

U GRO Capital will leverage its proprietary underwriting and cash flow-backed assessment model to offer short-term credit to dealer distributors and last-mile retailers, among other small merchants and women entrepreneurs.

Vikas Varma, Chief Operating Officer, South Asia, Mastercard shared, “U GRO Capital and Mastercard are joining forces to deliver an accessible working capital solution, and the collaborative commitment aims to fuel the growth of small businesses across India, paving the way for sustained success in the entrepreneurial landscape.”

Jebhealth, a Singapore-based health technology (HealthTech) company, Airwallex Singapore, and Visa have collaborated to launch a corporate health and employee benefits payment card.

“One thing we observed during COVID times was that medical and healthcare payments, whether transacted locally or overseas, were difficult to facilitate and costly. There is an access hurdle for new medical services that are traditionally not covered by insurance and third-party administrators. Alongside this, there is an inherent productivity problem when it comes to claims assessment and processing,” said Jimmy Boey, CEO at Jebhealth.

“By collaborating with Visa and Airwallex Singapore, we are excited to announce the launch of two Visa Business cards, the Helix Health Card and J World Card, designed to streamline online, outpatient, and overseas healthcare payments, creating a novel digital health wallet and payment product and a new class of Health-FinTech solution,” added Boey.

Recovery Loan Scheme

Funding Circle and Atom bank have announced a lending partnership that will provide £300 million of new funding to small businesses. With £350 million already lent through the Funding Circle platform, this latest commitment brings Atom’s total lending with Funding Circle to £650 million.

Atom will harness Funding Circle’s technology and distribution platform to deploy new funding to at least 4,000 UK small businesses, continuing its support for UK SMEs. Funding Circle’s machine learning models will provide Atom with an efficient and cost-effective mechanism to deploy capital to the real economy.

Funding Circle’s Instant Decision Lending technology enables small businesses to apply for finance in an average of six minutes, with lending decisions in just nine seconds. This seamless functionality is helping Atom provide small businesses with fast and simple access to finance.

This lending partnership will support SMEs through Funding Circle’s Recovery Loan Scheme (RLS) product and existing loan product. Atom will lend through the platform alongside a wide range of investors, including banks, asset management companies, insurance companies, government-backed entities, individuals, and funds.

The Liva Insurance has joined forces with Oman Arab Bank (OAB) to offer exclusive benefits to its growing customer base across the Sultanate of Oman.

As per the agreement, OAB Credit Card holders will benefit from an Easy Payment Plan on insurance products and services, allowing customers to pay the insurance premium in Equal Monthly Installments (EMI) for a minimum transaction of OMR 100 and above.

Hanaa Al Hinai, CEO of Liva Insurance, said, “As a fully integrated regional insurance company, we are delighted to join hands with OAB to offer convenient payment facilities, ensuring that our customers have an exceptional overall customer journey. This step comes in line with our strategy of providing the best insurance solutions while adding value to customers and enriching their lives.”

What is the buzz

LIC is considering the establishment of a fintech unit. In an interview with PTI, LIC Chairman Siddhartha Mohanty said the company has launched a comprehensive digital transformation initiative called DIVE (Digital Innovation and Value Enhancement).

He mentioned that the initial stage will witness a transformation in the customer acquisition process. The acquisition process involves three methods: through agents, bancassurance, and direct sales.

LIC primarily acquires the majority of its new clientele through its agents. Consequently, various domains are poised for change, with services such as claims settlement, loans, and other offerings set to be easily accessible with just a click.