Fintech solutions firm Stripe unveils innovative products aimed at SE Asia

The showcase was held as part of the Stripe Tour 2023 event in Singapore on Wednesday. More than 700 participants worldwide attended the event and watched the product demonstrations, panel discussions, and business networking. 

The company intends to catch up with Southeast Asia's rapid growth rate and mass technology adoption, believing the region has the potential to be one of the world's leading digital economy hubs.

Sarita Singh, Stripe's regional head and managing director, Southeast Asia, India, and Greater China, said during the opening session that Southeast Asia's rapidly expanding and dynamic digital economy provides tremendous opportunities for Stipe to integrate. 

According to a recent Stripe survey, businesses in Southeast Asia are thinking about their domestic and international expansion plans. 

Meanwhile, an increasing number of consumers are willing to buy physical goods and digital services online from a company based in another country. As a result, consumers expect a frictionless digital commerce experience anywhere, at any time, and on any device. 

These changes present significant challenges, including financial concerns, she said.

The cost of manual back-office tasks is not only in terms of time; it also has an impact on business decision-making, preventing companies from entering new markets because they are afraid of disrupting their existing financial systems. 

Stripe fills in these gaps, Singh said.

As a fintech company, she noted that the company focuses on improving the back-end payment system and financial management of each business in order to provide products and services with the best customer experiences.

Moreover, in order to assist businesses in responding to the aforementioned scenario, she said Stripe had demonstrated its expanded products by reducing checkout friction and closing the gap between online and in-person payments. 

Aside from payments, Stripe also showed several solutions for businesses to modernise their finance stack in order to increase efficiency and productivity through automation. 

Besides, the company shared an expansion of its revenue and finance automation product suite, including Stripe Tax — a solution for businesses selling to buyers in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand — to help them grow globally. 

Stripe's head of revenue and finance automation, Vivek Sharma, explained that by coordinating billing, tax, reporting, and data services in a single modern stack, Stripe's revenue and finance automation suite helps drive growth, reduces costs, increases efficiency, and enables CFOs to be strategic business innovators.

This also addresses one of the most significant barriers to further internationalisation: dealing with an increasingly complex international tax environment, he said.

Stripe Tax, he said, is designed to address these tax issues by allowing businesses to automatically collect sales tax, value-added tax, and GST on Stripe transactions in over 40 countries. 

He said that in addition to Singapore, the company had expanded its services in Southeast Asia to include Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand.

This allows businesses in the region to expand into rapidly expanding neighbouring markets without incurring additional tax burdens, he said. 

Stripe Tour 2023 also demonstrated its integration of artificial intelligence and generative AI into its ecosystem, allowing businesses to save time while increasing efficiency and productivity while growing their businesses. 

However, Vivek emphasised that the most important aspect of Stripe is what its customers want, not the most complicated innovative technology.

"We stick to what our customers care about. So, we let them lead the way, and often what our customers want is the same thing, but in a better version. Instead of focusing on what we think is cool, we just focus on what they want with craft product quality," he said. 

Meanwhile, Singh assured that the company would continue to expand its product investment in Southeast Asia.

"We're in it for the long run, constantly innovating to eliminate the complexities of finance and technology, so that businesses can focus on growth,” she said.