Entrepreneurial Finance, Innovation and Development

1 Digital finance and SMEs in Southeast Asia

An overview

Nhung Nguyen and Vi Dung Ngo

DOI: 10.4324/9781003134282-2

1. Introduction

In recent years, developing economies in the Southeast Asian region become important partners of many larger multinationals in developing new products or serving new markets owing to their greater flexibility and productivity (Google, Temasek and Bain, 2018). These economies actively participate in the global value chain and strongly contribute to the global economy (Bosma et al., 2020). Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for up to 99% of business establishments in key sectors, contribute to more than 50% of Southeast Asian countries’ GDPs, and employ more than 80% of the workforce (ADB, 2020). However, ...