Esme Loans, the end to end digital lending platform that provides unsecured business loans between £10,000 - £150,000 has today announced that it has enlisted Microsoft to build a new cloud based data warehouse, enabling the lender to make faster and better targeted lending decisions and to provide automated service assisted by artificial intelligence (AI).

Microsoft has entered into partnership with the digital lender to build a bespoke data warehouse – a centralised data repository held on an online server – which will allow Esme to improve its customer journey, simplify integration with third parties, and provide a faster end to end application process for customers.

Esme will also use the technology to build an AI assisted chat bot on its website, helping answer common customer queries and assist with the application process at critical points.

Following a proof of concept with a number of providers in late 2018, Esme Loans has begun work with the US tech giant to introduce the new technology as soon as April this year, as they aim to accelerate their growth throughout 2019. 

The partnership is the latest signal of strategic intent from Esme Loans since its launch two years ago. The digital lender, which prides itself on providing simple and hassle free loans at speed, grew nearly three times in size between 2017 and 2018, and has approved over £59million of lending to UK businesses since launch.

Richard Kerton, CEO and co-founder of Esme Loans, stated “We are excited to form this partnership with Microsoft as their technology can help us support increased numbers of SME customers with a simpler end to end lending process, and also provide us with a greater understanding of our customers’ needs.  Combined with their considerable insight and experience, we’re confident that this new partnership will help us accelerate our growth throughout this year and beyond.”

Wayne Bartlett, Head of UK Banking at Microsoft said: “Microsoft technology is helping Esme make quicker and smarter decisions to ensure that UK business are given the funds they need to grow and thrive. By automating processes and applying artificial intelligence it means that Esme can understand their customers better than ever before and will mean that more businesses get access to credit quicker, which in turn helps the overall economy.”