In the crowded fintech arena, Bettr, a leading provider of inclusive financial services and technology solutions under Ant International, is quietly redrawing the global credit map for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises ( MSMEs ). Built on a backbone of alternative data, machine learning, large language models, heterogeneous networks and deep neural networks, Bettr is proving that financial inclusion and profitability can go hand in hand, even in the world’s most underserved markets.

Bettr’s current strategy is simple but powerful: embed credit at the point of need. Whether it’s a food-delivery app or an e-commerce marketplace, Bettr partners with platforms that already serves MSMEs at scale and support their daily operations. It then integrates seamlessly into their user journeys: no arduous forms, no branches, just dynamic, invisible finance.

By embedding credit directly into digital platforms, it enables merchants with no formal banking history to access fast, secure, and tailored financing, often within minutes.

On the sidelines of the 2025 Singapore Fintech Festival, Quan Yu, General Manager of Global Credit Services at Ant International, says Bettr’s credit engine draws from alternative data streams like invoices, customer reviews, inventory flows, and transaction histories, bypassing the need for collateral. In emerging markets where only a sliver of the population is covered by credit bureaus, this approach helps widen access to credit in practical ways.

Quan Yu, General Manager of Global Credit Services at Ant International, speaking at the 2025 Singapore Fintech Festival. 

The approach was fully stress-tested during the global pandemic. As MSMEs buckled under lockdowns, Quan’s team held firm. It sustained credit flows without a spike in defaults, validating the resilience of its alternative-data-driven model. Today, the same approach is being exported to more emerging markets.

Real-world insight

Where traditional methods may see risk, Bettr sees potential. It underwrites millions of users with no bank accounts or payslips, by helping financial institutions and digital platforms turn unstructured data into credit insight. A merchant’s ability to restock inventory on time, their invoices, sales history, and even customer ratings, all of it becomes raw material for Bettr’s models.

Bettr’s alternative data-first approach also helped bKash, the largest e-wallet in Bangladesh with over 57 million users, provide digital nano loans to a broader base, expanding the number of eligible customers to over 30% of its active users, in a country where only 4-5% are covered by credit bureaus.

Infrastructure at scale

Bettr scales across over 20 markets, including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Brazil, Mexico and China’s Hong Kong, always adapting its strategy to local digital environments, regulatory frameworks, and user expectations.

In markets where Ant International’s other businesses operate, Bettr also works alongside them. Solutions from Antom and WorldFirst, such as merchant payment, business account and growth tools, can create synergies that support Bettr’s credit offerings.

Latin America and opportunity

In Latin America, Bettr is building its presence more from the ground up. It is now making a strategic push into Latin America, where unmet MSME credit demand tops US$1 trillion. The region mirrors Southeast Asia in key ways: youthful, digital-native populations, and a deep underbanked segment hungry for capital.

Bettr works with Dock, a Brazil-based payments and banking technology provider, to roll out its credit tech solutions first in Brazil and then to other Latin American markets. By tapping into Dock’s network of over 400 partner banks and fintechs, the collaboration aims to enable digital platforms to offer credit and financing services to MSMEs more efficiently.

In addition, in October 2025, parent company Ant International took a significant stake in R2, a leading embedded lending infrastructure company in Latin America, in line with its mission to anchor its technology in communities underserved by legacy finance. The deal gives Bettr instant infrastructure and local know-how, allowing it to embed AI credit engines and other credit tech solutions into platforms already trusted by small businesses in the region.

“R2 has been clear in its mission to support SMEs, the backbone of Latin America’s economy, from day one. With this shared commitment to inclusive growth, we’re confident we can turn cutting-edge technologies into real, practical financing solutions that open access to opportunity across the region,” said Yu.

Partnership, not disruption

Bettr doesn’t compete with banks; it partners with them. The model is symbiotic: Bettr gives them access to new borrower segments while benefiting from compliance infrastructure and bank-grade capital.

This partnership model is now being deployed across Southeast Asia and Latin America, with Bettr embedding its tech into local financial systems and working with regulators from day one. Crucially, Bettr expands the pie; it doesn’t just re-bundle existing loan books. Its sweet spot is the “missing middle” MSMEs, enabling them to access credit.

An example is Bettr’s collaboration with PT Bank OCBC NISP Tbk ( OCBC ) in Indonesia. The partnership seeks to extend responsible credit to more Indonesian MSMEs in a market where they contribute over 60% of GDP but remain underserved.

Precision at scale

Bettr’s edge lies in its ability to combine global tech scale with local credit nuance. It offers one-stop credit technology solutions across SaaS, Risk-as-a-Service, and Data-as-a-Service, that can be quickly customized to local market realities, supporting partners from the early stages of building credit operations through to scaled deployment.

Its credit engine streamlines credit assessment and decisioning, enabling partner platforms and financial institutions to roll out credit policies more quickly. Using a built-in template library that includes strategies such as underwriting, partners can configure their own credit policies through a code-free interface by assembling the modules they need.

A social mission strives for impact

While Bettr operates at commercial scale, its mission is social at core. It works with financial institutions and digital platforms to expand credit access for underserved segments. Every deployment is aimed at bringing MSMEs and individuals into the financial system who’ve been left out, gig workers, rural traders, informal merchants.

With over US$5.7 trillion in MSME financing gaps across emerging markets, Bettr is exploring new ways to reach underserved borrowers. Instead of relying solely on paperwork, it helps assess trust and reliability in real-time, through digital signals.

In a world hungry for inclusive growth, and as more markets digitize and platforms seek financial service integration, Bettr’s role as the credit “engine room” of Ant International is set to become an important contributor in emerging market finance.