Business Account Provider Tide Plans To Serve SMBs In India

United Kingdom-based FinTech Tide, which serves small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), is poised to step into the Indian market with an investment commitment of $100 million, CNBC TV18 reported. More than 200 staffers presently work for the company in India.

Tide said per the report that it opted for India as its inaugural foreign market because of the significant business opportunities that the location provides. The firm seeks to bring 25,000 SMBs in the country onboard in 2021, while it aims to serve approximately 2 million SMBs there in the next couple of years.

“[SMBs are] a crucial segment for economic growth but it is also quite underserved in India. Our aim is to bring services on one platform and ensure working capital liquidity for [SMBs],” Tide India CEO Gurjodhpal Singh said, according to the report.

Tide reportedly intends to take on the Indian market with services designed to assist SMBs in going digital.

“We are looking to working with startups who are serving [SMBs] already,” Singh said, per the report. “The idea is to work with them and bring their products on our platforms.”

Tide, which was established in 2015, provides business accounts, among other services. In the United Kingdom, the FinTech has in excess of 350,000 SMB users.

PYMNTS reported in January that Tide had revealed plans for an experimental rollout in India in the first quarter of 2021 with a wider rollout to follow later.

In May, PYMNTS reported that Tide was launching a new avenue to help SMBs with obtaining payments on time through its Tide Invoice Assistant offering.

“The Tide Invoice Assistant tackles a number of pain points experienced by small businesses — most importantly, automating manual and time-consuming processes and giving reassurance that they will be paid promptly,” said Alastair Travis, vice president of Business Services at Tide, at the time.