SINGAPORE - Media OutReach - 18 March 2020 - In furthering Singapore as the fintech hub of Southeast Asia, Global eTrade Services (GeTS) has announced its partnership with Aspire, a Singapore-based startup with aspirations of being Southeast Asia's SME Neobank leader.

The partnership will facilitate easier access for customers, especially SMEs, to trade financing on CALISTA Finance through CALISTA, a global supply chain orchestration platform run by GeTS.

CALISTA Finance aims to address the needs of underserved businesses, especially SMEs in Southeast Asia, to improve liquidity and meet other financial needs. By automating the documentation process and harnessing trade data, the know-your-business (KYB), loan approval and disbursal processes will be expedited while also enhancing security.

Aspire has been expanding its presence in several Southeast Asian markets. Through CALISTA Finance customers can seamlessly access the Aspire's credit offerings to expand their own businesses in the region too.

The company follows partners such as DBS Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), MoolahGo, and Liquid Group, which have already onboarded CALISTA Finance since its launch in December 2019. GeTS is also working to harness data to power up other financiers.

Chong Kok Keong CEO of GeTS, said: "We are delighted to have Aspire onboard CALISTA, to integrate the digital and physical aspects of trade financing on a single platform. This partnership will facilitate more convenient access for our customers to trade financing, as part of our vision to make trade more accessible, predictable and easier."

"With the same mission to support more small businesses in Southeast Asia, Aspire is excited to be working together with GeTS," said Joel Leong, Co-founder of Aspire.

Global eTrade Services (GeTS), a global leading trade platform company, is shaping the future of trade and supply chain with its innovative use of technology and deep G2B and B2B domain expertise. GeTS enables the orchestration of physical logistics, compliance and financial requirements of trade and supply chain seamlessly, smartly and securely, thus powering global trade by making it accessible, predictable and easier to fulfil. The company has linkages to 61 Customs nodes across the world, with more than 175,000 connected parties and conducting more than 24 million transactions annually.

Aspire serves a new generation of digital-savvy businesses with a mobile-first digital business account across Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Aspire's flagship product, AspireAccount, can be opened online in just a few clicks. The account is free and comes with a credit limit of up to 300k which can be approved in 24 hours. SMEs can then use the credit limit for daily expenses, virtual B2B payment and other tools to help SMEs manage their cash flow. With Aspire, SMEs can access financial services for their business operations anywhere and at any time through their mobile phones.