In cooperation with Hamburg-based Varengold Bank, Berlin fintech Kapilendo is now offering small and medium-sized enterprises the first fully digital application process for instant loans (GER: Schnellkredite) offered by KfW, a German state-owned development bank based in Frankfurt. German companies with more than ten employees can apply via www.kapilen.do/kfw-schnellkredit. The loans will be 100% guaranteed by the German Federal Government. Innovative API services by SCHUFA, the largest German credit bureau, ensure that the eligibility verification process and associated compliance checks can be conducted digitally.

By connecting a digital platform to this aid program, Kapilendo and Varengold Bank have created an urgently needed unbureaucratic process from application to payout.

Christopher Grätz, Co-Founder and CEO of Kapilendo AG, said: “We have processed an initial batch of applications, the first of which have already been approved by KfW. Together with Varengold Bank, and with excellent support from KfW, we have managed to provide the German “Mittelstand” with a straightforward and digital access to the KfW instant loan programme. This is good news particularly for those companies which have difficulties accessing this programme because they lack a long-standing credit relationship with their principal bank. The KfW instant loan scheme is an aid program which many small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany have been waiting for. The Federal Government and the KfW have taken exactly the right step. In the current situation it was imperative to create a straightforward and digital access to these instant loans, which we have managed to achieve in cooperation with Varengold Bank.”

To which, Frank Otten, Member of Varengold Bank’s Board of Managing Directors, adds: “Providing companies with quick and easy access to capital is most definitely part of Varengold Bank’s mission. We are thus really pleased to work with Kapilendo in these challenging times by siding with small and medium-sized enterprises, who are facing huge challenges through no fault of their own, and offering them instant, unbureaucratic support.”