OakNorth has signed a five-year deal with Dutch lender NIBC Bank in the first publicised sale by the British lender of its credit decisioning platform.
One of a host of new entrants to the UK banking market, OakNorth bills itself as a bank for entrepreneurs, providing loans to small firms, and accepting deposits online.
The company has attracted over $1 billion in funding, primarily on the back of plans to offer its innovative credit monitoring tools to other financial institutions.
OakNorth has made a virtue of its cloud-based technology platform, using machine learning techniques and artificial intelligence tools to build a £3.7 billion loan book within four years of launch. It claims not to have suffered a single default or late payment since its launch in September 2015.
The firm says the platform is currently being used by institutions in Asia, North America and Europe, but NIBC is the first to emerge from pilot trials to confirm a commercial engagement.
The partnership will see a large portion of NIBC’s existing corporate loan book onboarded to the platform. OakNorth says it will also assist the bank in exploring new possibilities in its lending to medium-sized businesses.
Paulus de Wilt, CEO of NIBC Bank, comments: “With the strengthening of our partnership with OakNorth that started with a minority investment in September 2018, NIBC will be able to leverage the OakNorth platform to enhance efficiency in the credit monitoring process with richer data, thus enabling us to even better serve our mid-market clients on their decisive moments. This partnership also enables us to strengthen our tech-based approach and better position us for the future.”