Meeting new market and growth challenges as member of the Microsoft for Startups program

Empowering SMEs in Switzerland and beyond

Large businesses can easily access competitive international payment and currency exchange tools offered by traditional banks. Since 2015, SMEs in Switzerland have the same chance to benefit from simple, low-fee monetary transfer tools thanks to the cloud-based WebApp amnis, a Swiss payment service provider. Due to its huge success in its home country, the startup sets its eyes on expanding into Europe and beyond. An ambitious target that required a complete restructuring not only of amnis’ organizational, but also of its IT infrastructure, to meet the growing business demands.

“Not long ago we were just a small team trying to get a foot in the Swiss market. Now we’re expanding into Europe, and I believe Microsoft enabled us to bring a lot of things together,” says Michael Wuest, CEO and co-founder of amnis.

Building a scalable and cost-effective cloud solution with Microsoft

The Microsoft for Startups program provides Swiss startups with a variety of benefits such as technical resources and free cloud. Being a member of the Microsoft for Startups program allowed amnis to access a dedicated technical and business support system built for early-stage businesses – the tools it needed to meet its ambitious growth plans. “This cloud architecture provides scalability and more stability, which is both highly important at amnis’ current stage,” explains András Ratz, CTO at amnis.

To further strengthen the partnership and reduce the administrative burden of its clients, amnis is currently also working on an integration with Microsoft Business Central. This extension will be listed on the Dynamics AppSource marketplace and will allow users to seamlessly issue international payments directly from their Business Central cockpit.

Summarizing, Michael Wuest says:

“It’s important to look at how the financial industry is changing and what SMEs now need from their banking provider to succeed. In the European market, we’re talking about 23 million SMEs, and by adding automations wherever possible we can help empower these businesses to connect with our solution and get their whole banking suite in one place. With our new infrastructure, in my opinion, that is now only three to five years ahead of us.”

Read amnis’ full success story in the recently published article by Microsoft here.