Brankas Closes Series B Funding of 287 Billion Rupiah, Led by Insignia Ventures

Fintech startup providing open finance solutions, Brankas, announced the closing of a $20 million (over 287 billion Rupiah) series B round led by Insignia Ventures Partners with participation from previous investors, Beenext and Integra Partners.

With this round, Brankas will expand its network, BaaS API products in six countries in Asia, and double the team from its current 100 people.

Furthermore, this round was also joined by 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 one of the participants in the accelerator program held by Visa last year. One of the innovations that Visa is working on is the issuance of digital credit cards that use Visa’s data capabilities. This solution was showcased during demo day in September 2021.

Safes Can Support the Acceleration of the Open Finance Industry

In an official statement, Samir Chaibi, Principal at Insignia Ventures Partners said, “Bankas is well equipped and well positioned to support the acceleration of the open finance industry in Southeast Asia.”

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

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 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 by extension extends their reach, especially to the users who have historically been difficult to serve with the 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 Safe API to verify and secure payments on their platforms.

Safe Solutions Can Be Used by Companies in Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand

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

Currently, the Safe 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 leading bank and fintech players there.

Quoting from Techcrunch, the company’s interest in the Safe 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. According to him, open finance is more than just payment or banking.

Safeguards 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.

Compared to its peers, 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.