BankiFi, an embedded banking solutions provider, announced its expansion into North America with the launch of BankiFi Americas. The organisation’s growth and expansion into the U.S. market will support the unique digitisation and payment modernisation requirements of SMBs while placing financial institutions at the heart of the relationship.

Currently, community financial institutions in the U.S. are facing existential threats from fintech platforms, national banks and accounting package vendors that are offering a competitive suite of payment solutions to SMBs. With BankiFi’s open cash management platform and architecture, financial institutions can embed a flexible solution that can be tailored to address the unique segments of their small business portfolio. The platform addresses critical SMB requirements through digital workflows that collect payments faster, automate data integration with accounting platforms, and provide comprehensive insights to optimise working capital.

“SMBs in the U.S. are facing the same problems we’ve seen in the U.K. and Australia, including late payments and time delays due to financial administration,” said Mark Hartley, CEO and Founder of BankiFi. “Within our technology, we aim to transform services available to SMBs within community banking, across the U.S.”

Financial services veteran, Keith Riddle, has been appointed to lead BankiFi Americas. With more than 35 years of experience in the financial industry, Riddle’s career spans executive roles at Sherpa Technologies and several industry-leading firms specialising in digital banking, bill presentment and payment, EFT processing services, and wholesale financial services and cloud computing.

“I’ve been following BankiFi’s incredible success in partnering with financial institutions to serve SMBs in the U.K. and realized the importance of enabling a comprehensive open cash management solution for financial institutions and their SMBs within the U.S.,” said Keith Riddle, CEO of BankiFi Americas. “I’m delighted to take the reins at BankiFi U.S. and build on what the U.K. team is doing in terms of digitising the critical small business workflows and embedding the solution within financial institutions’ digital channels, in what is certainly an exciting time for the sector.”