India's largest SME neobank — business accounts, expense management & banking APIs
Open is India's largest business neobank — founded in 2017 in Bengaluru, it claims 3.5M+ SME customers and achieved unicorn status in 2022. It combines a business current account (powered by banking partnerships with IIFL, Yes Bank, ICICI) with spend management (corporate cards, expense tracking), payroll automation, accounting integrations, and an embedded banking API platform (Zwitch). For Indian startups, Open solves a real pain: traditional PSU bank current accounts are painful, slow to open, and have terrible digital UX. Open's account opens in days, not weeks, and the dashboard is built for modern operators. The Zwitch API platform is the B2B layer — startups building fintech products can use it to embed current accounts, virtual accounts, and payment flows into their own products.
India Market Fit 4.6: Built entirely for Indian SMEs and startups. INR billing, India-native UX, GST-integrated invoicing. Reliability rated 3.6: some users report occasional transaction delays and customer support response time issues.
Open Financial Technologies is India's SME-focused neobank — a fintech company that wraps modern banking software around partner bank infrastructure to deliver a dramatically better business banking experience than traditional Indian banks. The core product is a business current account with an intuitive dashboard for managing payments, tracking expenses, running payroll, and generating GST-compliant invoices — all in one place.
Beyond the neobank product, Open operates Zwitch — an embedded banking and payments API platform that allows other companies to build fintech features into their own products. If you're building a marketplace and want to offer merchants a virtual account, or an HRMS that needs embedded payroll disbursement, Zwitch provides the infrastructure layer. This dual model (SME neobank + B2B banking API) makes Open relevant to two distinct audiences: Indian startup founders who need a modern business bank, and fintech product managers building embedded financial services.
Open raised $140M in a Series D led by IIFL Finance in 2022 to achieve unicorn status and has been growing its enterprise and API business since. The company is headquartered in Bengaluru.
Zero-balance or low-balance business account with instant NEFT/RTGS/IMPS, bulk payouts, and a modern dashboard. Works on Yes Bank, ICICI, or IIFL banking rails. Opens in 2-5 business days.
Visa prepaid corporate cards for team expense management. Set limits per card, per category. Integrate with accounting. Block/unblock instantly. Replaces personal card + manual reimbursements.
Automated salary disbursement with salary account opening for employees. TDS calculation, payslip generation, and PF/ESI integration. Saves ops team 2-3 days of manual work per payroll cycle.
Create and send GST-compliant invoices, track payment status, reconcile against bank transactions automatically. Integrates with Zoho Books, Tally, and QuickBooks.
APIs for virtual accounts, UPI payouts, NEFT/RTGS, escrow accounts, and current account issuance. For fintech builders embedding banking into their own products. RBI-regulated infrastructure.
Bulk vendor payment scheduling, approval workflows, and auto-reconciliation. Supports UPI, NEFT, RTGS, and cheque payments from one dashboard. Critical for ops-heavy Indian SMEs.
Opening a current account at SBI or PNB for a startup can take 2-6 weeks, requires multiple branch visits, and the netbanking UX is from 2005. Open, Razorpay Banking, and Jupiter Business get you operational in days with modern dashboards, instant payouts, and API access. For any Indian startup incorporated in the last 3 years, starting with a neobank is almost always the right call.
Business current account, GST invoicing, basic expense tracking, 10 payout transactions free/month. Standard transaction charges apply (NEFT ₹2-5, RTGS ₹25-50).
Everything in Starter + 50 free payouts/month, corporate cards (up to 3), payroll automation for 25 employees, multi-user access, accounting integrations.
Unlimited payouts, custom corporate cards, dedicated RM, Zwitch API access, white-label options. For companies with high payout volumes or embedded banking needs.
All pricing in INR. Transaction charges apply beyond free limits. Zwitch API pricing is volume-based — contact Open for API access. Compare with Razorpay Current Account for similar pricing.
| Feature | Open | Razorpay Banking | Jupiter Business |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary audience | SMEs + API builders (Zwitch) | Online businesses + payments-first | Freelancers + small businesses |
| Banking partner | Yes Bank, ICICI, IIFL | RBL Bank, Yes Bank | Federal Bank |
| Embedded banking API | Yes — Zwitch platform | Yes — Razorpay Route + X | No |
| Corporate cards | Yes (Visa prepaid) | Yes (RazorpayX card) | Limited |
| Payroll | Yes (built-in) | Yes (Razorpay Payroll) | No |
| Best for | Ops-heavy startups + fintech builders | ecommerce, marketplaces, payment-heavy | Freelancers, 1-5 person teams |
| India-made | Yes (Bengaluru) | Yes (Bengaluru) | Yes (Bengaluru) |
If you're a product manager at a fintech, HRMS, ERP, or marketplace building embedded financial services, Zwitch is the key product to evaluate. It provides:
For banking APIs in India, Zwitch (Open), Razorpay X, and Setu (PhonePe) are the main players. Setu has deeper Account Aggregator and UPI Deeplink coverage. Razorpay X is better if you're already on the Razorpay payments stack. Zwitch wins if you need current account issuance as a product feature — letting your SME customers open bank accounts from within your platform.