Shawbrook Bank has launched a new digital portal that will help brokers provide clearer, faster decisions to their business customers on asset finance proposals. The move comes as the next in a series of digital capability innovations launched by the specialist lender in recent months.

Powered by ConnectedFi, the new portal’s quick calculator tool will help brokers to provide instant indicative pricing to their customers. The programme also helps to improve the speed, accuracy and simplicity of submitting proposals by pre-populating data available via Companies House.

Brokers will also benefit from greater flexibility with the option to upload multiple proposals at once. Submitted forms are then automatically set-up in the lender’s cloud-based systems for faster onward processing.

The portal has initially been rolled out to 55 of Shawbrook’s asset finance partners, with access provided to 150 account managers across the brokerages. It’s available for lease and hire purchase facilities, with further enhancements planned by the specialist lender over the next 12 months.  

Chris Richold, Managing Director of Shawbrook’s Asset Finance team, said: “In our latest research, brokers revealed how their customers’ expectations are changing with many demanding faster decision-making and application processes to help them act quickly on new market opportunities post-COVID.”

“We’re harnessing technology to help brokers process routine finance proposals with greater speed and precision, allowing them to work more efficiently while building stronger relationships with their customers.

“This new ability complements the breadth of expertise in our broker team. The portal streamlines day-to-day funding processes, giving our team more time to structure more complex deals and meet specific needs with tailored support.”

Stuart Doignie, Head of Fintech Strategy and Commercialisation at Shawbrook, comments: “The new broker portal is another milestone in our fintech journey. As we evolved our digital capabilities to support SMEs, we recognised that our asset finance brokers required an online system to help them deliver funding with speed and efficiency and have now launched technology to enable this.

“We look forward to introducing further service enhancements for both our brokers and their customers.”

This latest technology deployment forms part of a wider ongoing technology and data strategy within Shawbrook.  The bank will create 100 new digital vacancies by the end of 2022 as it continues to enhance  customer experience,  and to deliver even faster lending decisions through automation.

Testimonials

“The portal is very simple and easy to use. It allows us more control and greater visibility of where individual proposals are in the process. The predictive feature to search for companies within the system is a time saver when adding new proposals. And adding multiple files for credit to review is also seamless and quick.”

Paul Bedi, Director at Central Asset Finance

“We’ve used Shawbrook’s new online system for several proposals now and the turnaround time on company checks and indicative pricing is really great. The portal itself is clear and straight-forward to use and we’re already seeing some efficiencies as a result.”

Esther Teear – Operations Manager at Technology Leasing