New SME Lending Solution For UK Commercial Finance Providers
London: 29 October, 2020: Dun & Bradstreet, a leading global provider of business decisioning data and analytics, today announced the launch of D&B Lending Intelligence. This online solution enables lenders to make quicker credit decisions for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by providing real-time access to a wider range of data, combining new UK commercial credit data from designated leading banks with additional data and analytics from the Dun & Bradstreet Data Cloud.
Over £60 billion has been provided to 1.4 million UK businesses via government-backed loan schemes in 2020 and access to finance is key to securing the survival and stimulating growth for SMEs. With exponential growth in business loan applications since the first national lockdown in March 2020, having immediate access to credit data online will reduce the time spent seeking referrals and further information and will help to facilitate decision-making, support risk assessment and open up lending opportunities for businesses when they need it most.
“With many businesses facing disruption as a result of the pandemic, it’s more important than ever that commercial finance providers are able to access detailed and transparent data to inform and accelerate lending decisions,” said Tim Vine, Head of Credit Intelligence at Dun & Bradstreet. “Incomplete data slows decision-making and by providing data from lenders alongside additional data and analytics, our online solution is designed to enable quicker lending decisions and ultimately to support the government’s aim to increase access to finance through the increased availability of SME lending data.”
HM Treasury designated Dun & Bradstreet as one of only four Credit Reference Agencies able to ingest commercial credit data from designated banks. The data and analytics firm has combined this with hundreds of additional data points from its Data Cloud to develop a new solution for lenders. D&B Lending Intelligence helps lenders improve the speed and efficiency of lending decisions and referrals using the recently available commercial credit data sharing (CCDS) information and its own proprietary data to help facilitate loans and support growth for UK businesses.
“A key objective of the Small and Medium Sized Business (Credit Information) Regulations is to open up access to credit data, improving the reliability of credit ratings and driving a more transparent and competitive lending environment which increases access to finance for smaller businesses,” said Alice Hu Wagner, MD, Strategy, Economics and Business Development at the British Business Bank. “This will be more important than ever as businesses seek to recover and grow following the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Dun & Bradstreet’s Data Cloud contains comprehensive global information on more than 360 million businesses, and supplies lenders with information including predictive scoring, credit ratings and analytical insights. As well as managing risk for the lender and speeding up decisions, this data can help maximise approval rates, avoid high risk applicants, identify applicants with high default probability and spotlight accounts that show early signs of credit decay.
Dun & Bradstreet is also actively supporting worldwide governments and communities, using its insights and resources to help power business recovery efforts. More information is available at www.dnb.co.uk/coronavirus
About Dun & Bradstreet
Dun & Bradstreet, a leading global provider of business decisioning data and analytics, enables companies around the world to improve their business performance. Dun & Bradstreet’s Data Cloud fuels solutions and delivers insights that empower customers to accelerate revenue, lower cost, mitigate risk, and transform their businesses. Since 1841, companies of every size have relied on Dun & Bradstreet to help them manage risk and reveal opportunity. Twitter: @DunBradstreet
Media contact:
Louise Cavanagh
+ 44 (0) 7545 300537
CavanaghL@DNB.com