Shawbrook hits £50m milestone in asset finance transactions using enhanced digital decisioning service

Shawbrook has announced a significant milestone, having now funded over £50 million in asset finance transactions through its digital decisioning service for flow business. Introduced in 2022, the broker portal allowed brokers to upload deals and perform initial checks. New technology releases means that brokers can also now obtain an agreement in principle (AIP) for deals under £250k in less than 24 hours.

The introduction of the new enhancement to Shawbrook’s digital service marks a growing appetite to support more SMEs across the UK to acquire the assets they need to grow. With a focus on technology with a human touch, the enhanced service for flow business provides automated decisioning on cases, where deals meet key criteria, and crucially passes to a human to review where it can’t say yes right away. This reflects Shawbrook’s ‘best of both’ strategy which combines the best technology with human expertise.

Obtaining approvals on larger, but straightforward deals is now faster, bringing in human expertise where it is needed. Doing this has created capacity to relaunch our mid-market proposition which is beginning to see early successes.

The system has also been developed to align to Shawbrook’s personable and proactive approach so that flow transactions that do not meet key criteria are channelled through to the lender’s specialist team to review, rather than taking a ‘computer says no’ approach.

The lender has been heavily investing in the digital side of its business over the past three years to improve the broker experience, focusing on driving efficiency where possible and speed of decisioning in the more straight-forward cases.

Its front-end broker-facing portal allows commercial finance brokers to send deals straight to Shawbrook and can be integrated directly into their own CRM systems by out of the box plug-ins.

Shawbrook will continue to pilot new features on the portal, focusing on broker experience and speed of decisioning and payout.

Stuart Doignie, head of digital SME at Shawbrook commented: “Our focus has always been about utilising technology alongside human expertise to provide brokers and their clients with the best possible service. We’re pleased to have now rolled out our new digital decisioning service to all our broker partners for deals up to £250K. With AIPs provided in less than 24 hours, and in some cases as little time as three hours, we can give brokers’ clients the reassurance to progress with their purchase plans.

“Reaching £50m of lending via the portal in such a short space of time just highlights the need for this service, and we are already receiving great feedback from brokers.

“We’re particularly excited to now be able to cater to a larger range of clients, with more flow business going through the portal. Technology does the heavy lifting, allowing our experts to concentrate on the more complex cases that require additional resources before being approved.

“We’re excited to continue working on further updates and utilising technology where we’re able to in order to further streamline our lending process and continue supporting brokers and the UK’s SMEs.”

The broker portal, and new AIP enhancement has already been well-received by Shawbrook’s broker partners. Nathan Whitmore, MAF Finance Group commented: “Shawbrook’s flow process has made the ‘tick & turn’ transactions easy to process from start to finish. Combined with their e-Sign capabilities, this has provided us with the tools to complete deals quickly and efficiently for our clients. There is always a member of the support team to speak to if we run into any issues, which from a broker’s perspective is imperative to have.”