iwoca is an online fintech company based out of London, offering credit financing services for small businesses through an automated lending platform.
Recently, the company has added another £100 million to lend to businesses through the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) before applications close on 31st January, 2021. This brings iwoca’s total lending to over £200 million.
Michael Elalouf, CFO, iwoca said: “Small business owners have had an incredibly tough year, and we’re grateful that we’ve been able to play our part in helping them to get through this crisis. With the recent CBILS extension, our focus is now on reaching as many business owners as possible who think they could benefit from Government-backed finance. iwoca stands ready to help those customers who are struggling to get the support they need from the high street banks during this time.”
Approves one in every 18 loans
According to Treasury figures, iwoca approved one in every 18 of all loans via the scheme in the last month. It has steadily increased its share of total approvals in the scheme from 1.6% in August to 5.6% in October.
The UK fintech lender has surpassed £100 million worth of lending through CBILS to businesses grappling with the fallout of the economic crisis caused by the virus.
Increasing the maximum loan value
Moreover, the lender opened up CBILS applications to new businesses on July 2 and over the past month, 83% of iwoca’s approvals through the scheme were given to new customers. On top of that, the company increased the maximum loan value available to businesses through CBILS from £500,000 to £750,000.
iwocaPay for free
The company is also making its invoice payment product – iwocaPay free for all small businesses to use throughout the UK’s second national lockdown. The payments product that allows sellers to get paid upfront while letting customers spread their costs over 90 days will have all of its fees dropped until the UK emerges from a second national lockdown on 2 December.
Founded by Christoph Rieche and James Dear in 2012, iwoca offers finance for businesses for various purposes ranging from bridging short-term cashflow gaps to investing in stock opportunities.
Garry Barker, Managing Director of property development and construction company – Dream Developments – and iwoca CBILS customer: “We develop commercial premises for local businesses. Pre-pandemic we had big expansion plans but these were shelved due to the lack of mainstream funding. To survive, we’ve had to adapt – we’ve diversified into developing storage containers instead of buildings for our clients, to address a local shortfall in availability. We’d have never been able to pivot the business and go down this path if it were not for the government schemes and of course iwoca. Being able to invest this way helps our business, local businesses, and the general public at a very difficult time.”
Since its inception, the company has made funding available to 50,000 businesses and have raised over £400 million in equity and debt finance.