Capitalise.com, the leading business funding platform for accountants, has today announced a partnership with small business lender, iwoca, and a high street bank, to launch Instant Offers. The partnership enables accountants to receive instant quotes on funding applications for their clients. Accountants benefit from offering their clients exceptional customer service with instant quotations and eligibility on suitable financial products whilst lenders can onboard high credit quality businesses, faster. 

Lenders and advisers alike recognise that, with an estimated 50,000 bank managers leaving the market since the 1990s, SME leaders are increasingly turning to accountants for advice on financial products. Using Open Banking APIs, Capitalise.com allows businesses to compare thousands of lending products, via an adviser. Using data collected directly from Sage Business Cloud and QuickBooks, Capitalise.com assesses the financial health of a company and matches it with lenders likely to consider an application for capital. However, without a universal API for the B2B market, advisers had previously waited several days before being able to pass a recommendation to their client. 

Instant Offers means that, once Capitalise.com has analysed relevant business data and assessed a company as eligible, advisers will receive an instant quote from iwoca, one of Europe’s largest business lenders, among other providers including a high street bank. In doing so, Instant Offers solves a key challenge for businesses, driven by the behaviour of business owners themselves. Faced with a cash flow issue, they spend just one hour researching providers, with 80 percent approaching only one lender. Receiving a real-time response will therefore help businesses understand their suitability for financial support and overcome challenges quickly, in a format that suits them.

Powered by Microsoft's Azure platform, Instant Offers is the first step towards creating a universal API for SME lending that will support advisers to access quotes from a wide range of lenders in a matter of seconds. 

Colin Goldstein, iwoca’s Commercial Growth Director added: “We strongly believe in the benefits of a connected and cooperative marketplace and have a proven track-record of helping accountants access finance for their clients. We’re trusted by accountants and delighted to work with Capitalise so that we can help make access to finance even more seamless for the market they serve. Our tech-led approach over the years has meant we were the first small business lender to launch a lending API which allows Fintech partners such as Capitalise to neatly embed our services into their own products. Our vision is to fund small businesses when, where and how they need it – this partnership will help us fulfil that.”

Ollie Maitland, Co-founder and Chief Product Officer, Capitalise.com, said: “Consumer finance providers have long been able to offer products instantly to customers but the technology to do the same for businesses has lagged behind. Instant Offers is the first step towards creating a universal API that will enable lenders to do so and, launching today with iwoca and a high street bank, means that advisers can receive real-time quotes for clients, enabling great service.

Because Capitalise.com works with advisers who help their clients determine the optimum time for and type of funding, Capitalise.com so far boasts a zero default rate when working with accountants.