iwoca, the international lending firm, and PayU, a leading payment service provider, have today launched an innovative collaboration aimed at making it easier for small and medium-sized (SME) entrepreneurs, particularly those in the eCommerce and eService industries, to obtain financing for growth. The collaboration marks the first venture of this kind in the European fintech market.

The new solution enables the entire lending process to take place online. Its simplified process also allows for faster decision making. Credit approval decisions on loans of up to 20 thousand zloty are made within minutes, while applications for loans exceeding 20 thousand zloty (up to a maximum of 150 thousand zloty) take a few hours.

The partnership combines the unique strengths of each company, with iwoca providing the loan and PayU assessing the creditworthiness of the loan applicant.

“We are constantly looking for ways to help our merchants grow their business and we know that securing access to finance is one area merchants, especially SMEs, can struggle. Our partnership with iwoca aims to make financing easier so that our clients can focus on developing and scaling their businesses faster. It’s all part of our goal to use technology to unlock financial services across the globe”, said Mario Shiliashki, CEO of PayU for the EMEA region.

“We want to make it as easy as possible for SMEs to secure financing. Our cooperation with such a significant partner as PayU will hopefully mean entrepreneurs will find it even easier to obtain quick financing exactly when they need it most,” said Mariusz Zabrocki, Managing Director of iwoca Poland.

The partnership with PayU is especially good news for young entrepreneurs who are unable to secure financing from traditional lenders. Significantly, 80% of microenterprises in Poland do not have business loans, according to the Credit Information Bureau, limiting pathways to growth.1

The partnership with PayU is part of a program of collaborations iwoca has established with banks, enterprises software companies, and online marketplaces across Europe. Together with Xero, the United Kingdom’s biggest accounting application, iwoca offers loan application integrations that reduce the time to financing. An iwoca loan is one of the payment options for orders made with Alibaba in several markets. Commerzbank, RBS, NatWest and many other European banks redirect business clients who do not meet the rigid lending criteria for to iwoca.