Brankas Scores 287 Billion Rupiah Series B Funding Led by Insignia Ventures

Fintech startup for open finance solution, Brankas, announced $20 million (over 287 billion Rupiah) series B round led by Insignia Ventures Partners with participation from previous investors, Beenext and Integra Partners. Brankas will use the fresh money to expand its network, BaaS API products in six countries in Asia, and double the team of 100 people.

Furthermore, also participated in this round, Visa, AFG Partners and Treasury International, a venture capital firm led by veteran fintech founders Jeff Cruttenden of Acorns and Eli Broverman of Betterment.

Brankas is part of the Visa's accelerator program last year. One of Visa's ongoing innovations is the issuance of digital credit cards using Visa's data capabilities. This solution was showcased during demo day in September 2021.

In an official statement, Samir Chaibi, Principal at Insignia Ventures Partners said, “Brankas is well equipped and well positioned to support the acceleration of the open finance industry in Southeast Asia. We are pleased to partner with a team that has world-class API-based infrastructure built for the key Southeast Asian market to serve emerging fintech players.

“We are also impressed with Brankas' approach to market development and its ability to launch and scale the products in a regulatory compliant manner while ensuring that developers benefit from a reliable and stable source of banking and financial data and beyond,” Chaibi said, Wednesday (1/5).

Currently, the Brankas platform offers more than 10 BaaS APIs, including online bank account opening, credit assessment, identity verification, e-commerce transactions, and payment solutions for the gig economy. The startup, which was founded in 2016, has a vision to democratize access to financial data and identity for banks, traditional financial institutions, and fintech startups.

For financial institutions, the Safe API platform opens up new digital capabilities and revenue streams such as online payments, identity verification and account opening, and to extend their reach, especially for users who historically have limited access with traditional financial services.

Meanwhile, for fintech companies, the Brankas platform is a bridge for important data needs for verification or assessment processes that should take longer to develop and optimize for users. These use cases are also leveraged outside of financial services, such as e-commerce companies using the Brankas' API to verify and secure payments on their platforms.

Across industries and use cases, Brankas offers compliant, reliable and secure systems at scale to simplify the local complexities of building and operating fintech products and services.

Brankas' solution has been used by companies in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. In the near future, it will soon expand to Vietnam and Bangladesh through partnerships with current leading bank and fintech players.

Quoting from Techcrunch, the company's interest in the Brankas' BaaS API solution is growing by 30% every month. There are now more than 40 financial institutions and 100 technology companies and channel partners. Since many of the clients of fintech startups focus on the unbanked and underbanked, Brankas' partners extend to financial providers such as remittances and e-wallets.

Brankas' Co-Founder & CEO Todd Schweitzer said that there is a huge opportunity for the open finance industry in Southeast Asia. He said, open finance is more than just payment or banking. Brankas building the next generation of financial services infrastructure in Southeast Asia has opened up new financial product development opportunities, in a region historically dominated by established incumbents.

"Thanks to our growing network of partners and customers, we continue to deepen our understanding of this opportunity and lead the solution development to open this door for those here in Southeast Asia."

He continued, the year 2021 was a company breakthrough as it opened up opportunities for financial institutions and companies to partner in new businesses in a way that had never been seen before for consumers in Southeast Asia.

Indonesia's open finance

Compared to other similar players, such as Finantier and Finverse, Brankas claims to be the only company that offers a regulated payments API that allows direct bank transfers and money transfers without intermediaries, as well as API-connected cryptocurrency and e-wallet payments.

Brankas also conveyed four points related to what made him different from his competitors. First, they focus more on the "supply side" of open finance, helping financial institutions to become "API-ready". The solutions presented help banks to deliver commercial API products in 6 weeks or less.

Second, Brankas seeks to help the government create a competitive and well-regulated open finance economy, therefore, it will be actively involved and chair the relevant associations for consultation. Third, the ongoing regional strategic partnership to bring new technologies and solutions to Indonesia; including with Visa, APIX, and Proxtera. And lastly, Brankas wants to ensure that the API aggregation presented is always reliable in terms of performance and security.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian