The rise of Super Apps in SME banking: creating a one-stop shop for SMEs

 

Transcript 

00:00:00  - Introduction and overview of the session

The webinar begins with Ken Burke, Senior Adviser at Chorus and Chairman of the Thematic Banking Community, introducing himself and sharing his background in retail and commercial banking across Western Europe. He emphasized the growing importance of super apps in transforming how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) manage their finances.

Super apps are emerging as all-in-one platforms offering services like banking, payments, invoicing, payroll, and lending—streamlining operations for SMEs who often juggle multiple tools. Ken highlighted the value proposition of super apps: simplicity, automation, and integration, while also noting challenges around trust, regulation, and long-term sustainability.

He presents the agenda, The session features speakers from ebankIT, Standard Chartered Bank, and ANNA Money. 

Ken encouraged audience participation via Slido polls, chat, and Q&A. The first poll asked participants about their institution’s current stage in offering a super app experience for SMEs.

Results:
- 50% are just starting to explore the idea
- 25% are bundling some services
- 13% have developed a platform with external integrations
- 13% say it’s not on their roadmap

José from ebankIT responded that these results were expected and reflect the early maturity stage of super app adoption globally.

00:05:00  - Super Apps the next evolution in banking

Ken Burke emphasized that super apps are becoming a natural evolution in digital banking. These platforms consolidate financial services (like payments, investments, budgeting) with lifestyle and non-financial services, creating a seamless, all-in-one experience. Banks are uniquely positioned to lead this transformation due to their trusted customer relationships and strong compliance frameworks.

Super apps are already well-established in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, offering everything from payments to transport and messaging. While adoption in the West has been slower, the speaker suggested we may be reaching a tipping point in 2025–2026.

The key to success lies in:
- Modularity
- Integration
- Hyper-personalization
- Open banking
- Strategic partnerships
- Composable, secure, and scalable platforms

00:10:00  - What is a Super App?

Ken Burke handed over to José from ebankIT, who began with a brief history of super apps and then explored their role in commercial and business banking, focusing not on offering more features, but on delivering the right features at the right time.

José highlighted that BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis coined the term "super app" in 2010 at Mobile World Congress. WeChat launched in 2011 and quickly became a model super app. It reached 100 million users in 2 years and expanded from messaging to include social feeds, city services, and payments (added in 2013). It became the default payment method in China.

José also mentions other notable super apps:
- Gojek (Indonesia)
- Rappi (Latin America)- Tinkoff (Russia) – the first regulated bank to adopt a super app model (2018), integrating services like travel, insurance, and ticketing. 

WhatsApp Pay launched in Brazil (2020) and PayPal launched its own super app in the U.S. (2021), combining payments, savings, crypto, rewards, and bill pay. Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) is evolving into an “everything app” combining social, payments, and commerce. Today, every major region has at least one super app or a strong contender, and there’s growing focus on interoperability, AI integration, and regulatory frameworks.

00:15:00  - Understanding the SME landscape in Europe

Across the EU, there are 32 million companies, and: 99% are micro and small enterprises (fewer than 50 employees)
Medium-sized firms (50–150 employees) make up 0.8%. Large corporates are just 0.2%. Despite their size, micro and small businesses employ 48% of the private sector workforce and combined with medium firms, they account for two-thirds of all private sector jobs. These businesses are critical to the economy but still face challenges like manual invoicing and fragmented financial tools, making them ideal beneficiaries of super app solutions.

While large corporations dominate in total turnover, micro, small, and medium enterprises (SMEs) still generate nearly half of all private sector turnover in Europe. These businesses are not marginal players—they are central to the economy and employ a significant portion of the workforce.

José highlights the top 3 financial pain points for SMEs (Consistent Across Europe).  The first one, basic banking tasks are still painful. Opening accounts or paying suppliers often involves manual processes, PDFs, and long email chains. Many SME owners handle these tasks after hours, often late at night. Secondly, access to credit is slow and expensive. While large firms can issue commercial paper in hours, small businesses may wait weeks for overdrafts and pay high interest rates. This gap has opened the door for alternative fintech lenders, including B2B Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) solutions. Thirdly, fragmented financial ecosystems. The average SME uses 6 to 12 different apps for banking, invoicing, FX, payroll, taxes, etc. These systems don’t integrate, forcing business owners to act as the “human API,” often working late into the night to reconcile data.

Each of these pain points represents a revenue opportunity:

Fix payments → win deposits
Fix funding → earn yield
Fix fragmentation → become the daily financial hub
This is exactly what challenger banks and super apps are targeting.

According to Forrester’s 2024 European Banking Report: Traditional banks’ Net Promoter Scores (NPS) have declined. Challenger banks consistently top satisfaction rankings in every country. A McKinsey study found that 1 in 3 SMEs are ready to switch providers—primarily for a better digital experience.

00:20:00  - How challenger banks are winning

Challenger and neo-banks are disrupting SME banking by addressing key pressure points:

1. Account opening
Traditional banks still rely on PDFs and branch visits. Challengers offer instant onboarding via selfie and ID scan, enabling account setup in minutes.

2. Fees & pricing
Incumbents use complex pricing structures. Challengers offer simple, transparent flat-rate plans (e.g., 2–4 tiers).

3. Technology & speed
Neo-banks leverage open banking APIs, cloud infrastructure, and AI-powered risk engines. They enable instant payments and fast loan approvals, reducing friction.

4. Lending criteria
Traditional banks rely on collateral and multi-year financials. Challengers use real-time data and AI for quick, flexible credit decisions.

5. Customer support
Legacy banks offer limited support (e.g., 9–5 call centers). Challengers provide 24/7 multilingual chatbots, data-driven human agents, and embedded support.

6. Integration capabilities
Neo-banks offer plug-and-play connectors to accounting, payroll, and other business tools. Some even build their own integrated solutions.

An overall trend: for challenger banks is replacing paperwork and latency with speed, transparency, and embedded intelligence.

With this context, the presentation shifts to defining what a banking super app is and how banks can build one. According to Gartner, by 2027, half the global population will use one or more super apps, with financial services as a leading use case.

00:25:00  - Super App characteristics

Super apps typically evolve from a single daily habit (e.g., chat, ride-hailing, wallet, or banking). Once payments are added and third-party services are integrated, they become self-reinforcing ecosystems. These ecosystems keep users and their data within a single digital front door.

Mike Lazaridis’ definition of a super app:
- Multi-service
- Embedded
- Data-rich
- Ecosystem-orchestrated

Other definitions build on this foundation, emphasizing modularity, integration, and personalization.

00:30:00  - Building a financial Super App for SMEs

José underlines the four pillars of a financial Super App. 

1. Transactions
The foundation of any super app is seamless, frictionless payments. The user experience must be smooth and intuitive—this is non-negotiable.

2. Platform Layer (Orchestration)
Acts as the brain of the app, handling: Identity, consent, security, APIs. This layer enables coordination between services and ensures compliance and control.

3. Embedded Services
Includes lending, insurance, invoicing, payroll, and tax. These services appear contextually—e.g., offering an early payment loan right after an invoice is issued.

4. Data & AI
Aggregates data from all services and transactions. Enables personalized experiences and revenue-driving insights through AI and machine learning

The technology stack for a Super App, should have Open Banking & APIs which enables secure access to SME data and payment initiation. Cloud-Native Architecture that supports scalability and modular deployment (e.g., invoicing today, payroll tomorrow). Real-Time Payments & Event Streaming that ensures instant transaction processing and real-time updates across services. Embedded Finance & BaaS allows integration of services like virtual cards, BNPL, and insurance without building from scratch. AI & ML allows to automate decisions and personalizes user experiences (e.g., proactive cash flow alerts and overdraft suggestions). Low-Code Tools & SDKs empower third-party developers to build and deploy mini-apps quickly using sandboxes and plug-ins.

00:35:00  - A Day in the Life of a Super App User

Imagine an SME founder who invoices a client in euros, pays a supplier in USD, schedules payroll, launches a marketing campaign via SMS or WhatsApp, all before 9:00 a.m., and all within one app. At the core of this vision is a “Money OS”: A live, multicurrency ledgerwith instant payments and payouts, FX hedging and sweep rules. This becomes the heartbeat of the super app, powering all other modules. 

The speaker expanded on the ideal super app experience, highlighting key functional layers:

1. Invoicing & Reconciliation: Automated invoice matching and bill capture—no more Excel. Invoices reconcile themselves while the business owner sleeps.

2. Payroll Automation: Covers contractors, full-timers, taxes, and benefits. A single swipe at month-end pays the entire team.

3. Growth Engine: Includes storefront plugins, pay-by-link, loyalty programs, and even ad/social media credits.

4. Marketplace & Ecosystem: A plug-and-play environment for mini-apps (e.g., shipping labels, legal docs, ESG calculators). Monetized via revenue sharing, with no developer backlog.

5. Intelligence Layer: Powered by AI and LLMs to forecast cash gaps, flag anomalies, draft supplier emails-

6. Trust fabric: Ensures seamless security with secure authentication, device risk checks, continuous AML monitoring, keeps fraud losses low and regulators reassured.

7. Integration Layer: Pre-built connectors with ERPs, e-commerce, logistics platforms. Enables workflow embedding instead of manual data transfers.

While the vision is inspiring, the reality is complex. Many financial institutions face hurdles like legacy core systems, fragmented customer channels, limited service integration.

00:40:00  - Designing a 5-year Super App roadmap

A traditional bank with a monolithic core and basic digital services decides to embark on a super app transformation journey. 

Before coding or gathering requirements, understand customer pain points. These vary by region, even within Europe, due to differences in regulation, Customer behavior, business priorities. 

Banks must recognize that customer pain points differ by region. In Spain, priorities might include card interchange fees or SEPA onboarding. In Germany, it could be invoice financing or FX exposure. Therefore, each financial institution must listen to its customers to identify the most relevant needs.

While assessing readiness for Super App development, banks should ask critical questions to evaluate their starting point. Can they expose and consume APIs from their core systems? Do they have any microservices running live? What are the technology gaps between current capabilities and the super app vision? Internal talent & culture matter, even with outsourced development, banks need: Project managers who understand both business and tech, a strong internal IT team to support transformation, cultural readiness and internal alignment are essential for success.

Step 1: Nail cash and payments

Build a unified cash cockpit showing all accounts and cards in one place. Launch a smart payments hub with user permissions and staff cards. Deploy a thin cloud-based ledger to enable integration with legacy systems. Partner with Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) providers to add: invoicing, Pay-by-link, Basic FX and cross-border payments
Focus on quick wins without major core system changes.

Step 2: Kill the paperwork

Extend the overlay ledger to manage payables and receivables. Introduce an API orchestration gateway with an event bus. Add machine learning for auto-reconciliation, trained on transaction data.
Integrate new services: expense scanning (OCR), payroll, embedded working capital credit, prioritize features based on business-critical needs and low-risk development paths.

Stage 3: Ecosystem and insights

This final stage focuses on full ecosystem enablement: implement a data lakehouse to centralize and analyze data. Introduce lightweight advisory widgets for cash flow forecasting and insights embedded throughout the UI. Build a partner console and revenue-sharing tools to support third-party mini-apps (e.g., insurance, logistics). Embed these mini-apps to create a marketplace and unlock new revenue streams with minimal investment.

José gives a functional timeline snapshot:

Year 1: Real-time balance aggregation, QR payments, pay-by-link, tap-to-pay.
Year 2: Invoicing, bill capture, virtual cards.
Year 3: Dynamic credit lines based on transaction data.
Year 4: AI-powered 30-day cash flow radar and payment reminders.
Year 5: Launch of the partner store, once the user base is stable.

The roadmap is designed to be layered and incremental, avoiding risky “big bang” transformations. Each stage builds on the previous one using: Open APIs, cloud-native architecture, microservices, event streaming, embedded finance. From an engineering standpoint, this is a realistic 5-year plan.

The speaker posed a reflective question to the audience: “From your banking perspective—considering people, budget, and governance—does this roadmap feel viable, or does it need to be resized?”

Ken Burke praised the presentation as a clear, practical, and ambitious roadmap for banks considering a super app strategy.
He emphasized the value of layering capabilities over time rather than attempting a risky overhaul of legacy systems.

00:45:00  - Investment considerations for a Super App roadmap

A participant asked for a rough estimate of investment needed for a 5-year super app journey. José acknowledged this is the “million-dollar question” and emphasized:
Investment depends heavily on the starting point of each institution. Some banks already have cloud-native infrastructure, while others are starting from scratch. While it’s difficult to give a generic figure, ebankIT regularly provides high-level investment horizons tailored to each client’s roadmap stage (Year 1, Year 2, etc.).

Aditya Sharma, Global Product Manager at Standard Chartered, began her presentation. She introduced the bank:
A London-based institution with over 150 years of history. Strong presence in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. A traditional bank that began a rapid digitization journey about 3–4 years ago.

Aditya shared insights from Standard Chartered’s real-world experience with Super Apps, collaborating with a leading Chinese super app. Her focus: how a traditional bank can integrate into a super app ecosystem and what that means from a lender’s perspective. She highlighted the contrast between traditional lending and the opportunities super apps offer: Traditional banks often rely on limited, outdated data to assess SME creditworthiness. SMEs are often seen as high-risk due to lack of transparency in financials and business health.

00:50:00  - Limitations of traditional SME lending

Across geographies, banks typically rely on outdated financial statements, bank statements (which can be manipulated), Tax data (often unreliable or unavailable in many economies), and credit bureau scores. These sources provide a static, one-dimensional view of a business, making it difficult to accurately assess risk or predict default.

Super apps (e.g., WeChat) offer rich, real-time data from millions of users and transactions. This data gives banks a 360-degree view of an SME, including: buyer/supplier relationships, transaction frequency, size, and velocity, payment behaviors and credit history, investment and insurance profiles, geographic footprint and spending patterns, seasonality, legal status, and even social engagement. This dynamic, behavioral data provides far deeper insight than traditional documents.

Transforming lending with real-time intelligence with access to live, ongoing data, banks can enable:
- Continuously monitoring of business health
- Reduce uncertainty in long-term lending decisions (e.g., 3–7 years)
- Predict risks more accurately and proactively
Standard Chartered began integrating this approach three years ago, aiming to:
- Embed itself into super app ecosystems
- Use data to finance more SMEs and finance them better
The bank has partnered with well-known platforms to access and leverage this data effectively.

00:55:00  - Integration strategy with Super Apps

Standard Chartered chose a partnership-led approach to integrate with super apps rather than building its own platform.This allowed the bank to gain access to rich customer data, Tap into a large customer base (e.g., over 15 million users), scale its reach far beyond what was possible through traditional channels.

To make the partnership model work, the bank had to undergo deep internal changes:

1. Strategic Realignment
Redefined its business strategy to align with the super app model
Focused on identifying the right customer segments within the broader user base

2. Risk Model Overhaul
Challenged long-standing assumptions about SME risk. Reimagined underwriting and risk management to suit data-driven lending

3. Client Journey Redesign
Traditional banking journeys were too slow and rigid. Super app environments required instant, seamless experiences
The bank had to reimagine customer interactions for a fast-paced, multi-lender ecosystem

4. Test-and-Learn Culture
Adopted a pilot-driven approach with continuous testing and iteration. Faced a steep learning curve in the first year, with many initial setbacks. Committed to ongoing improvement and adaptation.

The transformation paid off over time, the client base grew by 70%, there was a significant increase in loans and advances within targeted segments.

01:00:00  - Unexpected growth & massive efficiency gains

After integrating with a super app, Standard Chartered saw unexpectedly high demand. Their internal capacity was not prepared for the surge in volumes. They transitioned from a "feet-on-street" model to a fully digital sourcing model. This shift led to significant cost reductions in acquisition, operations, and processing. A notable drop in credit losses, even in post-COVID markets—down by nearly 50%.

Loan disbursement times dropped dramatically. What used to take 3 days for small businesses was reduced to 10 seconds through the super app integration. Achieving this required deep operational changes, including rethinking internal processes, adapting to the speed and scale of the super app environment

In the first month, the loan approval rate was just 10%, which was unsustainable. The team realized they were trying to fit the market into their existing systems, rather than adapting to the market. This led to a strategic pivot: aligning the bank’s processes with the realities of the super app ecosystem.

Key lessons for traditional lenders

1. Choose the right partner
Scale matters—not just for profit, but for data richness and model accuracy. More clients and transactions lead to better underwriting, cross-selling, and customer insights.

2. Adapt to the ecosystem
Success depends on aligning with the super app’s speed, structure, and user expectations. Traditional processes must be reimagined to thrive in this environment.

3. Commit to iteration
A test-and-learn approach is essential. Early failures are part of the journey toward building a scalable, data-driven lending model.

01:05:00  - Beyond technology: managing risk & compliance

Working with super apps isn’t just about tech, it introduces new types of risk, especially in lending. No face-to-face interaction with clients. Due diligence must rely entirely on digital data. Super apps are designed for user experience, not for credit risk assessment, so banks must collaborate closely with super app partners to access the right data. This includes data for sanctions screening, AML, and regulatory compliance.

Many regulators still operate under traditional frameworks, which don’t accommodate new digital lending models and can lead to several challenges. Banks often find themselves non-compliant when trying to innovate. Aditya emphasized the need for collaboration between banks, fintechs, and regulators to evolve policies that support super app-based financing.

Legacy banking systems are often inflexible and not API-ready. To integrate with super apps, banks must invest in new digital infrastructure, build new platforms and modernize core systems, have a clear digital strategy and investment roadmap is essential for scaling this model.

In order to redesigning client journeys and achieve 10-second loan approvals, the bank had to rethink client assessment models and redesign scoring algorithms, automate data ingestion and decision-making.
Initially, they reached 20–25 seconds, but even that was too slow for the super app environment. After further optimization, they achieved 10-second approvals, even for loans up to $500,000.

01:10:00  - Key learnings from Standard Chartered's journey

A holistic transformation is essential. Successfully working with a super app ecosystem requires changes across multiple dimensions credit risk appetite, technology infrastructure, compliance frameworks and client journey design. It’s not just about leveraging data or tech—it’s about rethinking the entire operating model.

A massive mindset shift is required, traditional banks must rethink how they operate. Often, it’s more effective to build new teams rather than retrain legacy ones. Customer stickiness is hard to achieve. Being part of a super app isn’t enough—banks must be agile, client-centric, and data-driven to stay relevant in a competitive ecosystem. Banks need a supplementary strategy, not a replacement. Super app integration should complement, not replace, traditional banking channels. A hybrid model works best—some banks that went all-in on super apps have struggled. Agility drives success, approval rates improved from 10% to 70–80% in just a few months through continuous iteration and adaptation. Talent & skills are critical. Existing staff may lack the skills needed for this model. Banks must hire or upskill for roles in data science, digital product design, and agile delivery. Privacy, consent & compliance must come first. Data privacy and client consent must be prioritized from the start. Compliance missteps can derail the entire initiative. Focus on micro and Small Enterprises. Super apps are best suited for micro and small businesses, which are often underserved by traditional banks.
This segment benefits most from digital-first, low-cost financial services.

Standard Chartered sees super app ecosystems as the future of SME banking. As data transparency increases, clients will become more comfortable sharing data, enabling the creation of credible digital histories. This shift will benefit not just banks, but the broader economy.

01:15:00  - Closing reflections from Standard Chartered

Aditya wrapped up her presentation by emphasizing that transformation requires change across multiple fronts—credit, compliance, tech, and mindset. A massive mindset shift is essential, especially for traditional banks. Customer stickiness in super app ecosystems is hard to maintain—banks must be agile, analytical, and client-focused. The super app strategy should be supplementary, not a full replacement for traditional models. Talent and skills are critical—existing teams may not be equipped for this new model.

Data privacy and compliance must be prioritized from the start. The micro and small enterprise segment is the most suitable and impactful target for super app-based financial services. The future of SME banking lies in data-driven, embedded finance, with growing client willingness to share data and build digital histories.

A live Slido poll asked participants which features would add the most value to SME digital platforms. Embedded lending and financing emerged as the top choice. This aligns with research from EY predicting that 60% of SME lending will come from embedded finance within 5 years.

01:20:00  - Introduction to Anna Money

Anna Money, founded in 2017 and live since 2018, is a UK-based app-only business account platform. It was designed to simplify taxes and accounting for SMEs—especially for side hustlers. immigrants, non-native English speakers. The app uses natural language processing to automate tasks like invoicing, tax preparation, company formation, Anna has seen rapid growth by addressing real pain points and recognizing that “there are no SMEs—only people behind them.”

01:25:00  - How banks are responding to Super Apps

Ken Burke asked panelists how traditional banks are reacting to the rise of super apps. José (ebankIT) responded that banks must first nail the basics—core products like lending and transactions—before building super apps. Many banks still operate with an outdated mindset, pushing their own models instead of responding to market needs. A mindset shift is needed before a product shift. The rise of AI presents major opportunities, but banks must lay the foundations to take advantage of it.

Aditya Sharma (Standard Chartered) emphasized that AI should be used end-to-end, not just for onboarding. AI helps manage collections, predict defaults, and identify propensity to pay. It enables personalized client management based on transaction behavior and future needs. AI is now central to risk modeling, client engagement, and portfolio management.

Boris Diakonov shared Anna Money’s journey and experience in the UK market. Regulatory challenges in the UK were minimal during Anna’s early years due to a supportive environment for Banking-as-a-Service and EMI licenses. The main challenge now is fraud liability legislation, where banks may be responsible for 50% of fraudulent transactions. This creates both a risk and an opportunity to use data-driven models to better detect and manage fraud.
The biggest hurdle wasn’t regulation—it was market entry. Building brand awareness and getting the product-market fit right were key. His advice to banks: In highly competitive markets like the UK, it may be too late to enter the SME fintech space. Instead, banks should focus on their strengths, especially in risk management and leveraging existing data.

01:30:00  - Key takeaways from the panel

Data is the new foundation for SME banking. Traditional models based on three years of financials and business plans are outdated. Banks must tear up the old playbook and embrace real-time, behavioral data to stay competitive.

Ken Burke thanked the speakers and he previewed upcoming initiatives from the Chorus SME Banking Community, including a project on bridging retail and SME banking with a focus on unified customer journeys. A leaders roundtable on agri-banking transformation in September
An event on improving credit decisions in SME banking in October.