Small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are becoming fintech’s most critical yet underserved users, especially in fast-growing cities like Bogota, Nairobi and Jakarta. Long stuck between consumer and enterprise tools, they face a USD 5.2 trillion global financing gap due to limited infrastructure, onboarding hurdles and lack of CFO-level insights. But fintechs and incumbents like Visa are stepping in with tailored solutions (e.g. real-time cashflow forecasting, spend categorization and faster onboarding) that empower SMBs to scale like larger firms. In emerging markets where SMBs make up the vast majority of businesses but only a fraction of GDP, the impact could be transformational. For fintechs, meaningful growth now hinges on building not just for consumers but for the SMBs powering global economies.
