European-based online lender Spotcap has partnered with New Zealand bank Heartland to expand its Australian operations through a $20 million fund injection.
“We are excited to have Heartland support our local operations through this investment,” said Lachlan Heussler, managing director of Spotcap Australia and New Zealand. “It puts further focus on our region’s potential to become global leaders in the fintech space.”
The lender provides unsecured credit and business loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of up to $250,000. Instead of looking at a client’s historical financials when making credit decisions, a proprietary credit algorithm is used that examines the financial condition of a business.
The investment by Heartland provides Spotcap with balance sheet funding to allow the lender to grow its loan book, Heussler told
Australian Broker.
“In order to do that, we’re ramping up our sales efforts. We’ve already doubled our distribution team in the last month or so and we’ll be aggressively pursuing the vast networks of partners that we now have access to.”
Spotcap has spent the past 12 months establishing relationships with some of the key aggregators in Australia and is now listed on the panel of several of these groups, he said.
“Our sales and distribution team acquired account managers who are going out and working with those distribution channels to educate them about our product, what it is that we do, and how it can benefit their clients.”
Through these efforts, Spotcap has on-boarded more than 1,000 partners in the past 12 months, Heussler added, a trend which continues to grow rapidly.
“We’ve got a highly automated process. It’s very easy for the brokers to sign up to our partner program. They get access to a dedicated partner portal which is specific to them and produces unique links which they can embed in their own websites.”
The lender will continually roll out updates to this platform, he said, to ensure that brokers and other distribution partners are looked after and have an exceptional experience.
“We have invested heavily in brokers and have introduced the category as a distribution channel for us. They’re delivering a significant volume as a result. What we’re going to continue to do this year is educate that channel about the opportunities that are out there.”
This includes educating brokers about how to write business loans for their small business clients, he said.
In the 12 months prior to December 2016, Spotcap grew its Australian loan book by 450%. The lender has raised over $110 million in equity and debt funding while issuing more than $90 million in credit to SMEs globally.
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