LHV Bank, the UK’s newest licenced bank, has rolled out a new loan system for its SME Lending division, transitioning to the cloud-based banking system of its SaaS partner, Tuum. This move consolidates the bank’s architecture, enhances resource allocation, and establishes a robust futureproof framework, free of legacy system challenges.   

“This integration with Tuum is a key step in our continuous effort to provide a framework that enables our SME Lending business to develop a wide range of new products quickly, allowing us to swiftly adapt to changing market demands,” says Erki Kilu, CEO of LHV Bank. 

LHV Bank’s lending division offers UK SMEs commercial property and trading loans up to £5 million. With the lending team based predominantly in Manchester, LHV’s regional focus is a key part of its lending strategy, helping to fuel economic growth in often underserved business hubs while ensuring directors fully understand the specific needs of local borrowers.  

Tuum, which operates across Europe and the Middle East, offers a cloud-native, modular platform that supports multiple business lines from a single system. Known for being highly configurable with a comprehensive API service offering, Tuum’s system offers a level of flexibility that was a key consideration in LHV Bank’s decision to choose them as a technical partner. 

“We took a buy-over-build approach for our lending architecture,” explains Erki Kilu. “This approach, combined with the expertise of our partners, allows us to sidestep potential legacy issues and incorporate valuable external insight into our system development”. 

Myles Bertrand, CEO of Tuum, added: “Our partnership with LHV Bank is further strengthened by their decision to use the Tuum platform for SME Lending. This follows the successful migration of millions of customer accounts from LHV’s Banking Services business line to Tuum platform earlier this summer. Clients that operate multiple business lines from our system see the best returns and reduced cost of ownership.”  

In line with its digital-first ethos, LHV Bank is committed to using technology to deliver the best client-facing offering. Reflecting this, in August, the bank introduced a new core banking system for its Banking Services business line, which caters to 200 global fintechs. The updated system delivers more efficient GBP payment system integrations, ensuring better reliability and scalability for its UK clients.  

Last week, LHV Bank entered the personal savings arena with Raisin UK, with the funds from the deposits used to directly support the SME Lending Business line. This is merely the bank’s first step into the space, with plans to launch a superior digital direct-to-consumer savings product in 2024.