UK-based Tide enters India market; plans to on-board 5 lakh SMEs by 2024-end

Tide, a small and medium enterprise (SME)-focused business financial platform based in the UK, has launched operations in India by introducing a business banking account and its RuPay-powered Tide Expense Card. The company also said that it plans to on-board 5 lakh SMEs in India over 24 months. 

The fintech offers banking services in partnership with banks. For example, the Tide Business Account and Tide Expense Card, has entered into a partnership with Transcorp, a RBI regulated PPI issuer, to enable small business owners to track spending and business expenses and facilitate transactions at all merchants that accept RuPay payments. In future, the company said that it will facilitate lending on its platform. 

The company said that SMEs who sign up for the Tide Business Account will have access to contactless services, and can use the free of cost Tide Expense Card to withdraw cash, for in-store purchases (including contactless tap and pay), ecommerce purchases and other payments.  

The app is now available for downloads on the Google Play Store, it further added.

“We believe there is a vast untapped segment of small businesses in India that hasn’t been formally accounted for,” said Oliver Prill, CEO, Tide, on launching the new operations in India. 

Prill added that in order to reduce the cost of due diligence, prevent illegal activities such as money laundering and financial fraud, Tide will on-board small businesses only on the basis of a full Know Your Customer (KYC) process. This is at par with traditional banking practices. This enables businesses to get the benefits of a business account upon onboarding.  

“As Tide scales in India, we will expand our product offering for entrepreneurs to both manage their finances seamlessly, and to take the big step of starting out – whether as a freelancer, sole trader, contractor or small business owner,” said Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO, Tide (India).  

He also informed that the company’s product engineering centre is in Hyderabad, where over half of its employees are based. 

The company is further working to introduce a host of other features which it will offer to small businesses across India. These include a business savings and current account in partnership with a bank, QR code for payments, bank transfers, invoicing, GST, pay by link and credit services, to name a few. 

India is one of the fastest-growing fintech markets in the world. With more than 6,636 fintech startups in India. An Assocham-PwC report estimates that the industry had a market size of $50 billion in 2021, and is likely to reach $150 billion by 2025, growing at compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31% in that period.