Funding Xchange embraces Open Banking through AccountScore’s market-leading solution

Funding Xchange, a pioneering SME lending marketplace and intelligent decisioning platform, has partnered with the leading fintech platform AccountScore, to enable SMEs to reap the benefits of Open Banking and efficiently obtain a greater number of personalised funding quotes.

By matching businesses with lenders, Funding Xchange provides SMEs with multiple quotes and helps identify the best funding solution for each business. By embracing Open Banking, Funding Xchange enables SMEs to efficiently provide vital data to their preferred lenders without the need for physical paperwork. The in-depth information provided via AccountScore’s solution speeds up the customer journey, enriches the lender’s underwriting sources and thereby reduces loan processing time.

Compared to traditional lending models, Open Banking enables more businesses to secure access to funding. Around 25% of SMEs are initially declined by their banks when applying for funding. AccountScore’s solution paints a holistic picture of a business’s financial situation by providing crucial insights, not available through traditional data sources, whilst making the process faster for both the consumer and the lender.

Katrin Herrling, CEO at Funding Xchange said: “This is a huge step forward as we look to reduce friction and increase peace of mind for our customers, while improving risk selection and speed of decisioning for lenders.

“Open Banking will be a key driver in enabling automated affordability models, giving lenders greater confidence in their digital credit assessments, and we’re delighted to be the first funding marketplace to integrate with AccountScore to help make this a reality.”

Emma Steeley, CEO, AccountScore, commented: “It is wonderful to see the growth of Open Banking in the SME arena, especially through the adoption of the technology by such a renowned platform as Funding Xchange. From experience, we know that the data provided via our Open Banking solution has enabled more businesses to secure the funding they need. We look forward to working with Funding Xchange to help enable more businesses to fulfil their potential.”

Ends. For more information contact:

AccountScore Irina Fedotova Irina.fedotova@accountscore.com

FundingXchange Tom Flack Tom.flack@fundingxchange.co.uk

Notes for editors

About AccountScore: AccountScore Limited (AccountScore) is a highly innovative global data and analytics business that provides actionable insights and analytics on bank transaction data for clients. Providing reliable, accurate and easy to understand transaction data analytics on data either sourced through consents.online (AccountScore’s AISP) or directly imported. AccountScore’s subsidiary Consents Online Limited (consents.online) is a registered Account Information Service Provider (“AISP”) which provides branded Open Banking as a Service (“OBaaS®”) and has access to APIs from banks to collect transaction data and provides the consumer with a portal to give them control over viewing and managing their consents.

About Funding Xchange: Funding Xchange is an SME lending marketplace and intelligent decisioning platform – the first of its kind – which matches businesses with lenders. It was founded in 2014, and has over 30,000 customers per quarter who can access a panel of over 40 lenders. It is part of the government’s Bank Referral Scheme, launched in 2016, which obliges lenders to refer unsuccessful applicants to its platform to seek further funding assistance. The company has raised a total of £9.5m, including £8m in November 2019 led by Downing Ventures and Gresham House Ventures. It made the top 10 in London TechWatch’s list of the London startups that raised the most capital in the month. Funding Xchange reduces the costs of acquiring customers for lenders, but passes the benefit on to customers by guaranteeing that it is never cheaper to go direct. Businesses can generate personalised funding quotes in less than four minutes and receive funds within as little as 10 minutes, rather than days or weeks as is usually the case. Funding Xchange transforms efficiency in SME funding by holding lenders’ underwriting models on its own platform, mirroring their decisioning based on their credit policies, affordability models and risk pricing, and integrating with their decisioning technology. The company has also integrated access to finance into payment solutions and cloud accounting software to offer a seamless experience for small businesses. By holding decisioning within its own secure platform, applicants’ personal data is protected. Its white label ‘lending in a box’ solution also digitises key steps in the underwriting process so that banks and lenders can quickly and cost-effectively serve business customers. The company produces a quarterly market report – the SME Lending Monitor – which tracks the behaviour and funding trends of SMEs and lenders. It is shared with key industry stakeholders and policymakers. The latest can be found on the company website here.