Banking is no longer restricted to visiting the branch to make deposits or calling the call centre for queries. It is now an integral part of our lives, even more so for services that go ‘Beyond Banking’. HSBC is building an ecosystem where, alongside providing financial support, it equips its customers with end-to-end services crucial to an enterprise’s success. The initiative aims to bring integrated solutions that help entrepreneurs attain new heights without losing their intuition and purpose.
Scaling a business from ground level can end up depleting a startup or SME’s resource pool. The challenge gets acute when modern compliance requirements and complex business processes are added to the mix. HSBC intends to solve this by creating an ecosystem that is convenient, cost-efficient, and meets the different business needs of entities.
What value does Beyond Banking bring to clients?
Let’s illustrate through an example of an entrepreneur, Prajakta. She runs a company that makes external ventilation systems for PPE kits. After finding success in the first year of the pandemic, Prajakta had readily started looking for opportunities to expand. Her product was exceptional, and her solution was unique amongst the ones already in the market. However, once the COVID-19 crisis was somewhat curbed in India and with the onset of winter, the domestic demand for these ventilation systems started falling.
Prajakta knew that healthcare workers around the world were still struggling with the pandemic and needed solutions like hers to be safe while providing essential services. She was also in touch with doctors and nurses working in the least developed nations, facing extreme conditions, and fighting regional outbreaks of malaria, yellow fever, ebola, and the likes. Prajakta realised the need to expand her business globally and ship her product overseas where it’s needed. However, such expansions can get overwhelming very quickly. She felt lost and confused by complex international trade mechanisms, from container shipping and customer engagement to database management and warehousing.
“Beyond Banking is an HSBC initiative to bring an ecosystem of value added services together, with the sole objective of supporting startups, small and medium-sized enterprises to scale, automate, and save cost. Think of it as an integrated banking experience that brings you everything you need to conveniently manage your business, from accounting and cloud computing solutions to shipping, logistics, and more.” Says Anuj Kanwar, Head Transaction Banking, Business Banking, HSBC India.
HSBC steps in for business owners like Prajakta
With HSBC’s Beyond Banking services, Prajakta was able to leverage its integrated solutions to create the systems she needed. This helped her focus on the core functions of her business and ensure the best quality for her product. She saved time, effort, and cost by letting AWS’s cloud computing solutions simplify how she approached data, security, IoT, and more. AWS’s safe and trusted cloud services allow entrepreneurs to optimise their processes and utilise dependable infrastructure to scale with comfort and convenience.
Further, all her logistic requirements was streamlined through the Shiprocket collaboration. Shiprocket took care of the complexities related to shipping, warehousing, etc . Prajakta was keen to grow her business in the international markets. As a solution to her challenge of managing multiple markets in one place, another collaboration – Eunimart stepped in. Eunimart not only facilitated order management, pricing and sales prediction, using artificial intelligence, on a single platform for Prajakta but also powered her global e-commerce dream by giving her an access to 25 ecommerce marketplaces across 100 countries.
With growth comes issues with accounting and tax filing, especially when you’re dealing with a high volume of transactions on a daily basis. It’s not easy to keep track of all your incoming cash flow, vendor payments, and expenses when you’re running a small team. When Prajakta entered the realm of international trade, she had easy access to Zoho Books through HSBC’s integration with the platform. It helped her with managing payments and accounting in one place. Through the partnership, entrepreneurs can seamlessly connect their HSBC Bank account with Zoho Books to make bulk vendor payments, simplify bank reconciliation, monitor bank balance in real time, stay GST compliant and much more.
Prajakta had to work with employees and other external stakeholders across countries. Remote working was the norm for her. That’s where Google Workspace, another collaboration under HSBC’s Beyond Banking, offered the ultimate suite of tools for managing work remotely. Prajakta found it convenient to work with her team through Google Workspace and collaborate with contractors in various parts of the world. She was also able to easily coordinate with international trade partners to fulfil orders on time.
With HSBC’s Beyond Banking offerings, Prajakta’s business processes were simplified, and she was able to reach new markets without difficulty.
HSBC aims to streamline business processes so that everything a new entrepreneur needs to get started is accessible to them right from the start through a complete ecosystem of services.
The bank is confident that Prajakta’s story will resonate with many of you. With the HSBC Beyond Banking initiative, you can easily manage all your business needs and focus on what’s truly important – your innovative spirit. Start your journey with HSBC today.
Disclaimer: Prajakta’s story is a fictionalised example of the value of HSBC’s Beyond Banking services and has been used for illustrative purposes only. HSBC does not promote the use and functionality of any third party products and services. HSBC is merely collaborating with partners across the industry to support and find value for its customers while being a bank of choice for its customers.
