Online lender Iwoca has released its open banking for all new customers with Lloyds Bank account to disburse loans quickly.
Image: Iwoca brings Open Banking to Lloyds customers. Photo: Courtesy of Wesson Wang/Unsplash.
With a secured connection, Lloyds Bank customers can now provide up to five years of transaction history to Iwoca with just few clicks of a mouse.
Iwoca claims that it is the first business lender to connect with any of the nine largest banks in the UK under the open banking initiative launched in January this year.
With this partnership, the lender can quickly process applications for Lloyds customers, further reducing the time it takes to process loans. The time spent on submitting bank information is now claimed to have been reduced to less than 60 seconds.
Iwoca formed the open banking initiative to leverage the opening banking movement in the UK, which was a policy/ regulatory initiative that gives control of data back to the customer, with API access mandates in place. The company claims to have used this opportunity to create open banking services for customers.
iwoca CEO and co-founder Christoph Rieche said: “Open Banking means high street banks no longer have a monopoly on transaction data. As a result, it’s now easier for small businesses to shop around and find the best financial service to meet their needs, without worrying about the brunt of loan application processes. With Open Banking, getting approved with iwoca is as fast as it is to drink your morning cup of coffee.
“We worked closely with the Open Banking Implementation Entity and Lloyds Bank to deliver this integration, and we aim to launch future integrations with Barclays, HSBC, RBS, Santander and others within the coming weeks.”
Founded in 2012, Iwoca claims to have lent more than £550m to over 21,500 European businesses so far. It provides short term loans of up to £200,000 to small and micro businesses in the UK, Germany and Poland.
The company claims to have become profitable this year and has also raised nearly £230m in equity and debt finance till now.
The Open Banking or Second Payments Services Directive (PSD2) norms came into force in January this year in Europe. These norms allow big banks to release data in a secured and standardised form to be shared online between authorised organisations.