Finfra, Indonesia’s lending infrastructure provider, has announced a landmark partnership with Tyme Group, the digital banking group behind TymeBank in South Africa and GoTyme Bank in the Philippines. This partnership, a first in Indonesia, supports Tyme Group’s entry into the Indonesian market as part of its broader Southeast Asia growth plan, following successful expansions into the Philippines and Vietnam.

The news comes after Finfra’s recent $2.5 million funding round, led by Cento Ventures, with investments from Accion Venture Lab, Z Venture Capital, Matiss Ansviesulis (founder of Avafin), and existing supporters.

Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, is experiencing rapid digitalization within its SME sector. By the end of the year, approximately 24 million micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are expected to be online out of the country’s 64 million.

With the government aiming for 30 million digitalized businesses by 2025, the demand for accessible credit is rising. Embedded lending, which integrates credit products directly into digital platform transactions, is increasingly seen as a sustainable, scalable, and less risky alternative to traditional lending methods.

“Southeast Asia is a central part of Tyme Group’s growth strategy, and Indonesia has long been a goal for our Group,” said Coen Jonker, Executive Chairman at Tyme Group.

“Partnering with Finfra allows us to tap into Indonesia’s immense SME segment by leveraging their robust embedded lending infrastructure and network within digital platforms. This collaboration not only accelerates our mission of driving financial access but also enables us to offer innovative lending solutions to a broader audience of businesses and consumers in the region at an unprecedented speed.”

Finfra has bolstered its platform with a range of significant upgrades, including a sophisticated API suite that enhances client onboarding, management, and servicing. The platform offers tools like in-house credit reports, a partner portal, and portfolio analytics to support responsible loan growth. To accelerate further development, Finfra has appointed Hadi Tanzil, former co-founder of EmpatKali and Xendit alumnus, as Chief Technology Officer.

“Partnering with Tyme Group is a key milestone that validates our thesis and allows us to work with almost any digital platform that wants to embed lending,” said Markus Prommik, CEO and Co-founder of Finfra.

“As more businesses embed lending services and products, and lenders eye the Indonesian market, our platform’s ability to connect both sides is transformative. This collaboration, supported by our investors, puts us on the path to profitability and strengthens our mission to drive financial inclusion and expand sustainable financing options in Indonesia.”

Finfra’s platform enables non-financial platforms to seamlessly integrate lending services, creating new revenue streams while enhancing user service. Its comprehensive, API-driven infrastructure provides a full loan management system, scoring, portfolio analytics, and debt capital access while ensuring regulatory compliance. This structure allows international lenders like Tyme to deploy scalable embedded lending solutions, such as merchant cash advances, to meet Indonesia’s growing credit needs for underserved businesses and foster financial access across the country.

Boon Ping Chua, Partner at Cento Ventures, commented, “Finfra’s embedded lending model is perfectly timed for Indonesia’s digital economy, which has produced hundreds if not thousands of industry-specific platforms that tend to find themselves in position to identify high-value lending opportunities. Launching nuanced embedded credit products on top of such platforms, however, requires compliant and efficient infrastructure. The Finfra team has just the right vision and execution precision to deliver this infrastructure and to connect local non-financial platforms to cutting-edge global players such as Tyme Bank.”

With this latest funding round, Finfra has raised $4.3 million to date. Since its previous fundraising, Finfra has doubled its client base and projects more than double quarterly gross profit growth in Q4 2024 compared to Q4 2023. The company has facilitated over $65 million in credit to underserved Indonesian businesses and is using the new funds to expand onboarding capabilities to serve its growing customer pipeline, which includes Indonesia’s technology scaleups GoCement and Mekari. Finfra also aims to enhance its data analytics, scoring, and risk assessment offerings as it moves toward profitability.

Rahil Rangwala, Managing Partner at Accion Venture Lab, added, “Across all the markets we invest in, we consistently see SMEs and consumers on digital platforms have an unmet need for credit. By building the lending backbone for digital platforms in sectors like e-commerce, agritech, and logistics, Finfra enables platforms to offer more accessible and sustainable credit solutions to their users. With lower servicing costs and stronger governance, lenders can design new products to profitably and responsibly serve customers who are currently excluded from the financial system.”