Across Southeast Asia, SMEs make up over 97% of all businesses and drive the majority of employment.
Yet access to credit remains a challenge, particularly for smaller and non-collateral borrowers.
For lenders, the opportunity is huge — but only if they can scale operations quickly, manage risk effectively, and deliver services efficiently.
Esquire Financing Inc., one of the Philippines’ largest non-bank financial institutions, faced exactly this challenge.
Serving over 27,000 entrepreneurs with flexible, non-collateral business loans, Esquire had the market demand but was held back by operational bottlenecks, slow loan approvals, and aging, siloed technology.
Choosing a Partner for Scalable Growth
The leadership team realised they needed more than incremental upgrades. They needed a modern, cloud-native platform built for speed, agility, and integration.
After evaluating multiple providers, Esquire chose Oradian’s Instafin — a cloud-native core banking system designed for fast-growing financial institutions across emerging markets.
“Oradian demonstrated experience, local know-how and a dominant track record in the Philippines, making them a natural partner,”
said Rajan Uttamchandani, CEO of Esquire Financing.
From Months to Hours – The Results
The transformation was delivered in just three months — compared to the 12–24 months common in the industry — thanks to Oradian’s embedded regional team and streamlined implementation process.
With Instafin, Esquire has been able to:
• Cut loan approvals from days to hours
• Triple its loan portfolio in under 2.5 years
• Go fully paperless, improving compliance and reducing costs
• Gain real-time dashboards for faster, data-driven decisions
• Prepare for seamless fintech integrations, such as digital wallets and payment platforms
“With technology you’re able to scale faster without having to roll out additional branches, so I think the investment in technology isn’t a cost-saving strategy, but a scale-maximisation strategy,”
said Stephen Williams, Esquire’s CTO & CTTO.
Lessons for Lenders Across the Region
Esquire’s story reflects a regional reality: whether in Manila, Jakarta, or Ho Chi Minh City, lenders are under pressure to serve more customers without proportionally increasing costs.
Cloud-native core banking platforms are enabling this by combining agility, integration readiness, and operational efficiency.
“The digitalisation journey was really a way to keep our costs down while being able to scale our business efficiently,” added Uttamchandani.
Antonio Separovic, Co-founder & CEO of Oradian, summarised the partnership:
“Esquire Financing focuses on their business and trusts us with the tech. By using Oradian’s real-time data, integrations, and faster approvals, they’ve scaled quickly.
Trust, openness, and shared goals drive our success. Oradian is their tech platform for today and what’s next.”
A Blueprint for Scalable Lending
Esquire’s rapid core banking transformation shows that with the right partner, even large-scale change can be achieved fast and with minimal disruption.
For financial institutions across Southeast Asia — from MFIs to digital banks — the takeaway is clear: investing in the right technology is not just about efficiency; it’s about unlocking market leadership.
Read the full case study here and see how Oradian’s cloud-native core banking system can accelerate your growth.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by thanyakij-12 via Freepik
