UK business banking platform Tide is to kickstart its international expansion strategy in India, with a committment to invest £100 million and create 1000 jobs over the next five years.
As a first step, Tide has formed a partnership with RBL Bank, who will provide the bank account infrastructure for its Indian operations. Users will be able to open current and savings accounts and access a set of ancillary adminstrative services.
Tide, which has recuited 350,000 SMEs and opened over 410,000 business accounts since its launch in the UK in 2017, already has 200 employees working at its technology centre in Hyderabad.
The company in January appointed Gurjodhpal Singh, formerly of local payments processor, PayU, to build on this foothold and lead the business as CEO.
The new jobs will be across a wide variety of roles, including product development, software development, marketing, risk & compliance and member support.
Oliver Prill, Tide CEO, says, "Tide recognises the ambitions of both the UK and Indian Governments to build India-UK bilateral relationships with an enhanced economic partnership and sees SMEs as being crucial to economic growth in both nations.
“We at Tide are committed to serving India’s 64 million, and growing, SME sector, helping to unleash the true potential of Indian small businesses by helping them to save time (and money) on their financial admin."