Ziyaad Mahomed (ISRA Research Management Centre, 2022)
Disruption of banking services over the last five years has evolved into a more normative expectation of new financial technology (fintech) with varied offerings and competitive solutions compared to incumbent (traditional, mainstream) banks. National initiatives have also focused on building micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the aftermath of the pandemic and have successfully applied digital transformation strategies to support their market inclusion. For example, Southeast Asian economies rely on MSMEs as they represent almost 70 per cent of the respective national labour forces and over 40 per cent of the countries� gross domestic product (GDP) (Asian Development Bank, 2020). The big challenge has been access to financing for entrepreneurs, where over 60 per cent of surveyed MSMEs claimed they were unable to access financing (Harvard Business Review, 2021).
