In this episode of The Hindsight, Vani Kola sits down with Mabel Chacko to unpack the early journey behind Open, Asia's first neobank built specifically for SMEs and startups -- the first customers, ISO compliance, building with your life partner as co-founder, and the decisions that shaped the company long before success felt inevitable.

The conversation highlights how SME banking remains a fragmented, underpenetrated market where fintech companies can win by becoming the integrated financial operating system for small businesses, not merely another payments or banking provider.

Traditional banking products are often designed around consumers or large enterprises, while small and medium businesses have much more fragmented financial needs. SMEs need more than just a bank account. Their financial stack typically includes collections, payments, expense management, payroll, accounting, reconciliation, credit and other operational workflows. This insight led to Open Financial Technologies, a fintech platform .

What the episode covers:

-- Technology can dramatically simplify SME finance. Automation and digital workflows can eliminate manual processes, reduce paperwork and make traditionally complicated banking services easier for small businesses to access.

-- Rather than offering one isolated financial product, fintech companies can embed themselves into the day-to-day operations of SMEs and become a central layer through which businesses manage money.

-- Financial products can be integrated directly into business workflows instead of forcing entrepreneurs to separately approach banks for every requirement.

-- Data creates a significant advantage. As fintech platforms become deeply integrated with a business's transactions and operations, they can develop a better understanding of the business and potentially use that data to deliver more relevant financial products and credit.

-- Payments can be the entry point, but the opportunity extends far beyond payments. Once a fintech company becomes part of a business's payment flows, it can expand into adjacent areas such as banking, lending, expense management and other financial services.

-- The SME market rewards product simplicity. Small-business owners generally don't want to manage complicated financial products; they want financial infrastructure that works seamlessly in the background and lets them focus on running their business.

-- Trust is critical in SME fintech. Businesses are entrusting a platform with their money and financial information, so reliability, security and regulatory compliance are fundamental to building a long-term relationship.

The broader takeaway: the next phase of fintech isn't necessarily about creating another consumer-facing financial product. A much larger opportunity lies in digitising the financial infrastructure of millions of SMEs and embedding financial services directly into how they operate.

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