Trade Ledger supercharges business loan approval speeds, delivering 90% reduction in 'time to yes' in ScotPac asset finance pilot

• Real-time platform delivers quick approval turnaround, reducing decision times from days to hours
• Fully digital experience transforms SME business funding for businesses and their advisors
• 300% growth in asset finance business volume achieved since implementation
• Lending-as a-service platform helps firm ScotPac's position as one of few Australian and New Zealand business financiers able to quickly finalise funding for simple and complex deals

LONDON, Sept. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Global digital lending platform innovator, Trade Ledger, has joined forces with ScotPac, Australia and New Zealand's largest non-bank SME lender, to create a market-leading origination and underwriting experience for business funding. The partnership demonstrates the game-changing scope of the Trade Ledger platform for business lenders and their customers, dramatically reducing application turnaround times.

ScotPac is using Trade Ledger's data-driven lending platform to unlock all types of working capital and business lending products for SMEs who cannot always easily access finance. The Trade Ledger platform was piloted on ScotPac's asset finance offering and has been a hit with business owners and brokers, achieving a 90% reduction in application turnaround time and a 300% growth in new business volume in the past 12 months.

"Our technology and business data insight, paired with business finance experts like ScotPac, is accelerating and transforming business finance - focusing in particular on the SME and mid-market lending experience, unlocking economic growth with better lending products," said Martin McCann, co-founder and CEO of Trade Ledger.  "Our platform puts the customer experience at the heart of the process and expands credit distribution without increasing risk, unlocking a £1.2 trillion un-served segment of the £7 trillion global SME credit market. The ScotPac partnership demonstrates how effectively our platform can help a lender grow their business.

"Trade Ledger's platform goes beyond Open Banking. Our ability to match a lender's customers with the right services and bring new propositions to market quickly is key to our relationship with ScotPac and transforms how business finance can be accessed."

"ScotPac and Trade Ledger have created a fully digital experience that is simple for the end user, whether they are a small businesses or large corporation. The goal is to transform business funding so it's easily accessible for SMEs," ScotPac CEO Jon Sutton said.

"SMEs can quickly access multiple products (including our debtor finance, asset finance and trade finance), to solve their most bespoke or complex funding problems. The value of speed and consistency is massive for business owners, and for our broker and accountant partners."

Trade Ledger technology sits at core of ScotPac's new digital lending experience

• A digital credit assessment and onboarding experience built on scalable native cloud architecture, with microservices that allow lenders to rapidly create tailored workflows, rules and logic
• A platform with best-practice compliance and security integrated with external data sources, for data-driven analysis and fast funding decisions
• Daily use of AI and data analytics within the business that improve customer experience and provide growth and efficiency metrics
• Tailored workflows and user workspaces that allow lenders to perform credit assessment tasks with speed and at scale
• A Partner Portal that makes lending decisions super-quick for brokers, accountants and other ScotPac partners, and that also provides them with real-time deal progress and handy templates and resources to make it easier to do business

Using data and tech to reimagine the world of lending for SMEs

"The Trade Ledger partnership will completely digitise the front door to every channel and product for ScotPac, with supercharged and secure digital processes that don't hold business owners back when they are looking for funding," Mr Sutton said.

"The investment in cutting-edge technology is part of our 'best of both worlds' approach of providing business owners with a quick, easy digital decision on whether we can fund them, while preserving the deep, relationship-based funding reputation we've built since the 1980s. It provides ScotPac clients and introducers with the technology and speed of a fintech, giving each business more control and visibility over their funding deals, but unlike fully online lenders we remain able to handle complex transactions."

He said the partnership with Trade Ledger is an important tech initiative, one of several planned for ScotPac, who have invested heavily in technology and expanded their product offering and executive team. This is driving ScotPac's transformation from what has been for more than 30 years primarily a debtor finance business, to become a significant leader in working capital lending in Australia and New Zealand.

"Even with great digital experiences, businesses want and need flexibility – they don't want to deal with a lender that is a 'one size fits all' sausage factory. ScotPac's investment in technology is allowing us to make nimble decisions to quickly understand each business and make an accurate call on funding," added Mr Sutton.  "ScotPac can handle complex requests to get deals done, and really partner with clients, rather than just make algorithm-based digital decisions about whether or not to fund them."

About Trade Ledger

Trade Ledger was founded in 2016 to help the financial services sector reimagine complex business finance for SMEs and mid-market corporates in the digital economy.

The lending-as-a-service (LaaS) platform supports all secured and unsecured business lending products, transforming data sources from the supply chain into actionable insights and tasks. This enables the right lending products to be created and offered at the right time, over the right channel, quickly, at low risk. Its clients boost their profitability, realising on average a 60% origination cost reduction, a 50% reduction in dropouts and loan book growth potential of over 100% through embedded finance.

Backed by venture capitalists Point72 Ventures, Foundation Capital and Hambro Perks, and other notable investors such as Court Lorenzini (founder of DocuSign), Trade Ledger is currently scaling globally to accommodate a fast-growing client base of global trade banks, regional and national banks, and alternative finance providers. To date it has raised £16.6 million.

Trade Ledger was picked as a Top 40 Fintech in 2021, and was awarded LendTech Initiative of the Year 2020, Lending Platform of the Year 2019, and Startup of the Year 2019.

About ScotPac

ScotPac is Australia and New Zealand's largest non-bank SME business lender, providing funding to small, medium and large businesses from start-ups to enterprises exceeding $1 billion revenues. For more than 30 years ScotPac has helped thousands of business owners succeed, by unlocking the value from their business assets. Whether it is purchasing stock, investing in vehicles and equipment, improving cash flow or accessing additional working capital, ScotPac can help.