Iwoca: NGO against COVID-19 Funding Support
Entity: Iwoca
Category: Funding support; Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme
Description: Iwoca provides small business credit finance services in the United Kingdom. It offers finance for businesses for various purposes ranging from bridging short-term cashflow gaps to investing in stock opportunities. It serves retailers, restaurants, hotels, service providers, and more. Christoph Rieche and James Dear founded iwoca on October 1, 2011.
1. Project: OpenLending platform
Summary: Iwoca has launched a new lending platform which it claims will help two million British small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by 2023. The OpenLending platform has already bagged UK challenger Monese as a partner, and SME software provider Xero is also set to join the project later this year. Xero is already working with iwoca on “a customised finance solution” set to be released in early 2021. OpenLending currently has 14 partners in total, which use it to customise access to funds for their customers. Its creation comes off the back of iwoca’s £10 million Banking Competition Remedies (BCR) grant win.
The lender says it wants to “unify fintechs and banks” by providing micro businesses with “fast and digital access to finance at a crucial time”. Both fintechs and incumbent banks can use the platform, which arrives at a time when banks and the government have put aside hundreds of billions to help British businesses avoid total collapse as the coronavirus continues to disrupt the economy. “Digital access to finance is particularly valuable now where COVID-19 may lead to severe disruption of bank branch networks and call centres, reducing their ability to provide the service level that they aim for under normal circumstances" says iwoca’s CEO and co-founder Christoph Rieche.
2. Project: Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme
Summary: CBILS is managed by the British Business Bank only through accredited lenders and supported by a range of approved partners. It provides financial support to smaller businesses (SMEs) across the UK that are losing revenue, and seeing their cashflow disrupted, as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. The scheme is a part of a wider package of government support for UK businesses and employees.
CBILS has been significantly expanded along with changes to the scheme’s features and eligibility criteria. The changes mean even more smaller businesses across the UK impacted by the coronavirus crisis can access the funding they need. Importantly, access to the scheme has been opened up to those smaller businesses that would have previously met the requirements for a commercial facility but would not have been eligible for CBILS. Insufficient security is no longer a condition to access the scheme.
