Why merchant data, customer relationships and trusted digital commerce could become some of Southeast Asia’s most valuable economic infrastructure.
Consider two small businesses.
Both generate steady sales. Both have loyal customers. Both have operated successfully for years.
But one records its transactions digitally, understands its customer patterns and maintains reliable financial information.
The other operates mostly through cash, informal records and personal experience.
To their customers, both may be equally successful.
To a financial institution, they may look very different.
This is one of the hidden challenges of financial inclusion: economic value exists, but the evidence needed to recognize that value is often missing.
The World Bank is drawing attention to this opportunity.
During the October 13 MSME Finance: Leveraging Data for Jobs event at the 2026 IMF–World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok, the World Bank introduced a strategy to help small businesses become more visible, connected, enabled and funded.
The numbers underline why this matters.
According to the World Bank, micro, small and medium-sized enterprises account for approximately nine out of ten businesses and three-quarters of workers in developing economies.
The event brought together World Bank President Ajay Banga, KASIKORNBANK CEO Kattiya Indaravijaya and leaders from companies including Grab, Konfío and Lendable.
The discussion addressed how digital payments, transaction histories, electronic invoicing and cash-flow data could help financial institutions better understand businesses that lack traditional collateral.
For Southeast Asia, the implications are significant.
But I would argue that financial inclusion should not begin with a loan application.
It should begin with making the underlying business stronger.
From merchant digitization to merchant intelligence.
Imagine a market owner managing hundreds of merchants.
Each merchant has different products, customers, operating hours, inventory cycles and working-capital requirements.
A digital platform could help these merchants organize everyday activities: sales records, inventory, payments, customer engagement and business reporting.
Over time, these activities can create something important—a clearer picture of business performance.
This is part of the opportunity we see through ThaiMarket.biz, a platform connecting market owners and merchants, and Ex10.tech, focused on customer engagement, CRM and loyalty.
The two address different but complementary parts of a merchant’s business.
ThaiMarket.biz can become a foundation for more connected market operations and merchant services.
Ex10.tech can help merchants better understand and develop customer relationships through engagement and loyalty capabilities.
Together, they create the possibility of connecting operational intelligence with customer intelligence.
Consider what that could mean.
A merchant might discover which products drive repeat purchases, when demand peaks, which promotions actually generate incremental revenue and how cash flow changes across seasons.
An owner managing an entire market could gain a better understanding of occupancy, merchant performance and the services that tenants need.
A participating bank, subject to consent and appropriate controls, might eventually use independently verified business records to supplement conventional credit assessment.
The opportunities extend beyond lending to insurance, supplier financing, inventory optimization and business planning.
These are future product and partnership possibilities—not services that should be assumed to be available automatically.
Trust is what makes the opportunity scalable.
The October 14 launch of the Bangkok Blueprint for Fraud-Resilient Financial Services, developed by the IMF and World Bank Group with the Bank of Thailand, adds another dimension.
The future of digital finance depends on trust.
For merchant platforms, that means customer consent, business verification, secure data-sharing arrangements and responsible use of information.
We should not collect every available data point simply because technology makes it possible.
Instead, we should ask whether a specific use of information is necessary, fair and genuinely valuable to the merchant.
A merchant must benefit from participating in the ecosystem.
And a lending partner must remain accountable for credit decisions and regulatory compliance.
The opportunity goes beyond Thailand.
Across Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines and other developing markets, small businesses face variations of these same challenges.
The commercial model will not be identical in every country. Regulations, merchant behavior, payment systems and market structures differ.
But the underlying capabilities—merchant management, customer engagement, consented data, verification and business analytics—can potentially be adapted and reused.
That is how a local market technology can become a regional platform.
At Emetworks, our interest is not simply in adding another digital tool to a merchant’s workload.
It is in exploring how existing commercial ecosystems can generate more value for the people participating in them.
Success should be measured by improved merchant income, higher customer retention, more efficient operations and genuinely improved access to financial services.
Not merely the number of merchants registered on an application.
An invitation to build together.
The next generation of financial inclusion may be created through collaboration between market operators, banks, payment providers, retail technology companies and venture builders.
We would welcome discussions with partners interested in piloting merchant digitization, customer engagement, permissioned commercial-data infrastructure and responsible financial-services innovation.
Because when a small business becomes more visible, more productive and more financially capable, the opportunity extends far beyond one merchant.
It strengthens the wider economy.
Better business data should create better opportunities—not just more data.
Explore the emerging ecosystem: ThaiMarket.biz · Ex10.tech
Further reading: World Bank — MSME Finance: Leveraging Data for Jobs · Bank of Thailand — Bangkok Blueprint
#FinancialInclusion #MSME #Fintech #DigitalCommerce #Ex10 #ThaiMarket #ThailandToTheWorld
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