Barclays begins deploying funding through MarketInvoice
BARCLAYS has begun deploying funding directly through the MarketInvoice lending platform as the fintech-bank partnership struck in 2018 matures.
“Barclays is now also deploying their funding directly onto the MarketInvoice platform,” Anil Stocker, chief executive and co-founder of MarketInvoice wrote in a LinkedIn post.
“This is a huge milestone for fintech-bank collaboration as it is the first time a top four UK bank has entrusted credit decisions with their balance sheet to a fintech.”
Read more: Barclays takes stake in MarketInvoice in SME drive
The partnership between the two firms began in 2018 after the bank took a minority stake in the business invoice lender.
The move allowed Barclays to offer its small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients access to MarketInvoice’s technology.
So far almost £20m has been advanced to businesses through the partnership, Stocker said.
At the time the companies said they also planned for Barclays to fund invoices via the MarketInvoice platform in the future.
It is expected that Barclays could fund as much as £1bn of invoices over the next few years.
MarketInvoice has itself funded invoices worth around £2.7bn since its launch in 2011.
Read more: Barclays to fund £1bn of invoices via MarketInvoice in coming years
Barclays and MarketInvoice are also working closely in other areas, such as collaborating on Barclays’ #FrontFoot campaign which aims to support businesses through Brexit.
“We also plan to join them on the frontline at a series of Barclays Brexit clinics, run cash flow workshops in local Barclays branches and work alongside their incubators at Rise and Eagle Labs to help business owners think more strategically about cash flow,” Stocker said.
Barclays’ and MarketInvoice’s partnership has also been expanded to the national level. In the past six months Marketinvoice has met with 1,300 of Barclays’ business relationship managers across the UK to see how together they can support the bank’s one million business banking customers.
Barclays and MarketInvoice are building a partnership for the “long-term” regardless of the outcome of Brexit, he said.
“There’s no denying that these are uncertain times but whatever happens, we will not lose focus of the mission that unites us: to empower businesses with innovative forms of finance that enable them to grow and achieve their most ambitious aspirations,” Stocker said.
“There’s a bright future ahead for fintech-bank collaboration, this is only the beginning.”
Read more: MarketInvoice secures £56m of equity and debt funding