SME Finance Forum member Xero, along with DBS, have expanded their partnership to help SMEs simplify bill payments by launching an industry-first online payments solution to help start-ups and SMEs manage their cashflow needs better.

The DBS-Xero payment solution addresses payment problems among SMEs caused by finance-related concerns such as cash flow problems. This is an issue which plagues more than 1 in 3 SMEs in Singapore.

The new payments solution is a straight-through one as it eliminates an SME’s administrative burden of having to manually enter payment details on multiple platforms, which could potentially lead to costly human errors during the process. With this API-driven banking service, payments can be initiated on Xero and approved through the bank’s corporate internet banking platform, DBS IDEAL, all in a few clicks.

SMEs form the backbone of the Singapore economy. 99% of the companies incorporated in Singapore are SMEs, who in turn employ more than 80% of the workforce.