Trade Ledger and Equifax have announced an extended partnership for the UK market which will bid for the BCR Capability and Innovation fund.

The fund is part of the RBS Alternative Remedies Package, designed to improve the financial products and services available to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
 
Trade Ledger said its loan origination and servicing technology has been “purpose built” to securely aggregate, store and transform any type of structured data directly from common SME applications – like accounting packages – to facilitate better digital credit products. The banking platform added that its technology also combines transaction data from banks and credit history data from credit bureaus, such as Equifax, to help underwrite risk.
 
Building on an established data collaboration relationship, Equifax indicated that the two parties plan to work together to create a “portable credit file solution” for SMEs. The business insights expert suggested the proposition will use “breakthrough” financial technologies such as Open Banking and Open Accounting to enable UK SMEs to build their credit profile. 

Trade Ledger co-founder and chief executive, Martin McCann, commented: “We’re delighted to partner with Equifax on the concept for a service which, if we are successful, will deliver tangible benefits to hundreds of thousands of hard-pressed SMEs and lenders simultaneously.
 
“By leveraging our unique open platform for SME finance and unique commercial data
assets from Equifax, we have the chance to play a significant role in driving the UK’s
recovery from COVID-19, as well as building a more sustainable and competitive financial
services sector after.”
 
Equifax UK chief product and marketing officer, Jayadeep Nair, added: “We’re acutely aware of the challenges faced by UK SMEs as a result of COVID-19, and want to play our part in supporting their recovery.

“Using technology such as APIs and Open Banking, plus a combination of traditional and new data sources, we can build a better and more accurate picture of an SME’s financial health in real-time.”

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