2020 is a year like no other. While we’ve seen many established businesses come to a close we’ve also seen the rise and resilience of small businesses. With this newfound strength, it has been Kiu’s pride to be part of this SMEs journey by helping them thrive using digital transformation tools such as Kiu BMP. In all countries of operations, Kiu has been recognized as a champion for SMEs. Being part of the Inclusive Fintech 50 2020 cohort, Kiu continues to support the cause of SMEs by promoting inclusivity amid crisis. Kiu’s technology platform provides tools for MSMEs/SMEs alike to be more efficient and productive while leveraging data for access to capital. Kiu enables the establishment of the credit line needed to fund to expand and cope up with business demand.
And together with Kiu’s loan management system, the company’s BMP and accounting system drives a credit scoring engine and enables partner banks to assess loan risk while reducing administration costs. Loans can be delivered in less than 24 hours from the initial request. Since launching, Kiu has reached a market of more than 35,000 businesses.
And the mission continues, like in Myanmar where about 58% of SMEs and 74% of women-owned businesses are rejected for loans due to lack of credit histories, collateral, and organized. Kiu offers a suite of products from a simple mobile bookkeeping app to accounting and POS to a full ERP system for larger enterprises. Kiu Myanmar empowers MSME/SMEs to improve their business efficiencies, allowing them to be able to receive loans and grow their business as Kiu took center stage once more as it won Seedstars World Yangon.
During these extraordinary times and with an uncertain road ahead of us, we remain hopeful as more and more SMEs learn to digitize. Preceding a pandemic, we will now see more and more businesses going cashless and it will be more prevalent in many developing countries. SMEs will learn to sell online and make use of the technology available. Fast forward to 2030, we will see more digitally-driven governments and the rise of digital banks. As our CEO, Steve Landman said it best, today’s disruption is tomorrow’s progress as he shared his thoughts on the future of SMEs in a recent call for insights in the SME Finance forum 2020.
And as 2020 comes to a close, we look forward to leveraging our inherent advantages to provide support to these MSMEs/SMEs.