The two firms have extended their 20-year partnership with the launch of a co-branded business credit card that caters to the needs of small businesses.
American Express and Singapore Airlines are courting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a co-branded credit card launched on Thursday that comes with premium travel benefits and promises to help them better manage cash flow.
With the card, business owners can get «access to credit terms, more savings, and a suite of travel benefits – to support their ambitions and help them overcome these challenges,» Geoff Begg, Asia Pacific senior vice president, Global Commercial Services, American Express, said in a media statement.
The card, which comes with extended interest-free credit days, also has travel benefits and rewards that SMEs do not typically have access to, but the program aggregates an offering for SMEs in totality to bring them benefits normally reserved for larger companies.
SME Survey
According to the «SMEs Go Places» survey commissioned by the two companies, which was conducted among 200 SMEs, more than 74 percent of SME owners expect to grow their businesses in the next 12 months. Of this group, more than half feel worried about increasing competition and cash flow management, with one-third of respondents facing difficulties in expanding abroad.
Nine in 10 SMEs said they have dealings overseas, but one-third of them said that their international expansion is limited by the lack of access to capital and cash flow, the survey said. Forty-six percent of them also do not use credit cards at all, and rely on debit or consumer cards instead.
