According to the Australian Banking Association, of the 2.6 million businesses in Australia, the majority (98%) are small and medium enterprises (SMEs)*. As the sector accelerates in 2023, it also suffers from an increase in the cost of goods and services, leading to rising inflation and unemployment rates. In this scenario, entrepreneurs are eager for help.
Australian company Grow is ready to help them. Grow is a leading lending partner for SME businesses looking to expand, manage cash flow and deal in today's increasingly complex and competitive operating environment. It will launch its first credit card, powered by Pismo.
The Grow Mastercard® credit card will be available in market from September. This new offer will give business owners better cash flow, management and capital to help them improve their businesses.
Grow has chosen Pismo's all-in-one, public cloud-native financial services platform to support its card-issuing operation. By using a modern and feature-rich platform, it seeks to differentiate itself from other lenders and continue supporting the Australian SME segment, an estimated $410-billion market.
"Pismo brings us its extensive expertise in card issuing and payment processing, which includes managing 42 million cards. The Pismo platform enables us to develop our credit card business without building the infrastructure from scratch. While Pismo focuses on the technology, we focus on supporting Aussie SMEs to grow their businesses," says David Verschoor, Executive Director and Co-CEO at Grow.
Founded in 2016 in Brazil, Pismo has operations in five continents with 450 employees. It processes 290 million transactions monthly. Pismo provides card issuing infrastructure for Banco Itaú – Latin America's largest bank; BTG Pactual, the largest investment bank in the region; NG Cash, a fintech focused on Generation Z; a German fintech N26, the global bank Citi, among others.
"Grow has been having a significant impact on the Australian SMEs so far. It will serve these companies even better with their new credit card. We are very proud to announce them as our first Australian client", says Vishal Dalal, CEO (North America, EMEA, APAC) at Pismo.
About Grow Finance Limited
Grow Finance (Grow) is a leading Australian non-bank business lender. Grow's vision is to support companies to thrive in today's increasingly complex and competitive operating environment. This is achieved by a comprehensive suite of working capital and asset finance products. Grow's is renowned for being agile, innovative, and disruptive, and consistently redefines product classes. Grow was recognised as the #1 fastest-growing company in the 2021 AFR Fast10100! received the #1 Australian and #8 Asia-Pacific high-growth company in the Financial Times High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2022, and again, was listed in the top 10 in the Financial Times High-Growth Companies Asia-Pacific 2023.
About Pismo
Pismo is a technology company providing an all-in-one processing platform for banking, payments, and financial markets infrastructure. Large banks, marketplaces, and fintech companies use our cloud-native microservices platform to launch next-generation solutions and move from legacy systems to the most advanced technology in the market. The Pismo cloud-based platform empowers firms to build and launch financial products rapidly, scaling as they grow to have a broader audience while keeping high security and availability standards.