At the beginning of summer, the company AREX Markets announced its intention to go one step further in its expansion strategy. In a few weeks, it put its platform at the service of other fintechs, neobanks, technological software and even competitors, so that they can develop and offer solutions for On-demand financing for SMEs as a service.
After demonstrating that its technology works in different markets, the company has reached a sufficient degree of technological maturity to be able to offer its ecosystem exponentially at a European level. Its objective is to seek integration with as many companies as possible in order to fulfill its mission of continuing to reduce the financing costs of SMEs.
The fintech has created an ecosystem that connects the needs of flexible and low cost financing of SMEs with the capital of professional investors thanks to open banking technology, the use of data and automation. On the one hand, the platform is capable of quickly analyzing the financial data and credit history of companies in real time and, on the other hand, converting the commercial paper of SMEs into an investment asset (ETR) that is traded automated in the world’s first commercial paper marketplace for SMEs for professional investors.
“Building a system from scratch to offer financing to in-house SMEs requires a significant investment, it is technologically complicated and, in addition, it entails various administrative requirements. Our model works and is robust: it allows neobanks and other technology firms can connect to our platform and integrate our solution to offer it to your customers -SMEs- turnkey, through our automated marketplace for professional investors of SME commercial paper. It is a virtuous model: the greater the volume of financing, the lower interest rates will fall. That is why we have decided that this solution must be accessible to the greatest number of entities possible in order to reach a greater number of SMEs”explains the CEO of AREX Markets, Airto Vienola.
Allow access to unlimited liquidity to neobanks and other entities
Thanks to technology, the use of data, open banking and automation, AREX has the necessary infrastructure that removes structural barriers so that any fintech with access to their customer data can integrate with them and thus offer commercial paper financing solutions for SMEs on a large scale.
The AREX model thus solves a inherent problem some fintechs and neobanks had: not being able to offer credit to their corporate clients (SMEs) because the infrastructure was highly expensive for them and put pressure on their balance sheet. Now any entity that wishes can develop personalized short-term debt financing solutions for SMEs through AREX, even under its own brand, and have access to the liquidity of the automated marketplace for professional investors.
Through the analysis of this data in real time, the fintech can offer risk transparency to professional investorswho invest through automated trading algorithms that connect them to volume and risk based on their goals.
Growth in Spain
AREX Markets announced its entry into Spain a year ago, pointing to it as a key market for its international expansion plans. The entity trusted in the possibilities of the country, whose business fabric is represented by 99% by SMEs.
As a first step, AREX sealed an alliance in Spain with SAGE, to offer its first alternative financing product to several companies: factoring for SMEs, which is already available to more than 10,000 Spanish SMEs.
The company has demonstrated the success of its ecosystem in countries such as Finland, England and Spain, where it has reached agreements with different ERPs and technological software (Xerox, Sage, Accountor), offering financing of nearly 500 million to SMEs. Likewise, it has proven the success of its marketplace, which to date has processed more than 90,000 invoices, allowing it to offer liquidity even in difficult market times, such as the current one, and which continues to grow in volume and number of investors.
“Our business strategy is now more ambitious because we want our financing ecosystem to offer SMEs options that until now were only accessible to large corporations. The formula to do so is to share our solution with other fintech entities so that they can offer this service to their clients and thus grow exponentially”, summarizes Vienna.
