Invoice Bazaar Taps Rakbank For Supply Chain Finance Growth

United Arab Emirates-based Invoice Bazaar, a FinTech offering receivables finance, supply chain finance and other solutions for B2B trade, is now working with a top bank in the nation.

The company revealed Tuesday (Aug. 8) that it is pairing with the National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah, also known as Rakbank, to grow its supply chain finance offerings for the FI’s corporate customers. The bank will join Invoice Bazaar as a Receivable Purchaser to back financing initiated on the Invoice Bazaar platform, making Rakbank the first FI in the Middle East to ink such a partnership with an alternative SME finance firm.

“This partnership is significant to us as we move towards further digitizing our offering to our business clients,” said Rakbank CEO Peter England in a statement. “This opens up a new channel in SME lending.”

According to their announcement, the bank is also exploring how to expand the Invoice Bazaar partnership using the FinTech to streamline its own invoice discounting and trade finance services.

Invoice Bazaar uses Receivable Purchasers like Rakbank to provide early payments to SMB suppliers on its platform as they wait to get their invoices paid from large corporate buyers.

“We are extremely pleased to have Rakbank as the first partner bank in our endeavor,” said Invoice Bazaar founder and CEO Anand Nagaraj in another statement. “Rakbank is one of the most active and innovative banks in the region, and it was no surprise that they moved faster than any other bank to understand the synergies that exist. This association will help us attract global and local corporations to implement Supply Chain Program for their suppliers.”

According to the companies, five Supply Chain Finance programs have been implemented at corporates as a result of the partnership.

Earlier this year, Invoice Bazaar announced it received new funding. The company declined to reveal how much it raised, but it did note that the funding came from former Citigroup CEO and Asia Pacific Chairman Shirish Apte.