Tide, the leading SME-focused business financial platform in the UK, will this year expand its offerings for its member merchants in India, providing solutions such as acceptance of QR code-based payments; invoicing solutions and credit through partnerships with other fintechs, its visiting Global CEO Oliver Prill said on Tuesday.
“We have all of this in our global platform. We will release it for India. We will this year take logical set of steps to make that happen,” Prill told businessline here.
Prill said this fintech start-up is well on course to meet its June 2021 announced target of making investments of ₹ 1,000 crore in Indian market and hiring 1,000 people for its Indian unit, which now largely comprises of global product engineering team operating out of its Hyderabad centre. As on date, Tide in India has over 550 employees on its rolls.
Gurjodhpal Singh, CEO India, said Tide has onboarded 50,000 Indian members (micro, small and medium sized businesses) to its platform as on date and is aiming to take this count to million members (MSME merchants) by December 2024. This year Tide will add as many as 2 lakh members, he added.
“India symbolises entrepreneurship and we estimate that 10 percent of global MSMEs are in India. Since January this year (just then started) we now have 50,000 members in India. One in ten Tidian members is Indian and we are looking to grow that very substantially,” Prill added.
MSME exchange program
Prill announced that Tide will this June launch an MSME Exchange Programme (MEP) – an initiative designed to localise entrepreneurship and foster bonds between small business owners from India and the UK.
This exchange programme will encourage connection between SMEs in India and UK, said Anna Shotbolt, Deputy Trade Commissioner, South Asia at the British High Commission.
Asked about the status India-UK FTA talks, Shotbolt said that Indian government officials are visiting London this week for the ninth round of FTA negotiations. As already conveyed by the leaders of two countries, both UK and India are committed to deepen their bilateral relationship, she noted.
Industry-first
MEP is an industry-first initiative by any fintech company working in India’s MSME ecosystem, according to Tide. MEP will enable smaller entrepreneurs to widen and sharpen their business knowledge, and ultimately to grow their businesses.
The MEP targets new-to-business and new-to-digital micro-entrepreneurs in both countries.
Tide will choose two entrepreneurs/small business owners every quarter from India and the UK and sponsor them under the MEP to visit the UK and India. A total of 16 small businesses, 8 from each country will benefit from the programme. The programme starts on June 1, 2023 and ends on May 30, 2024.