Atom bank has partnered with fintech Credit Kudos to further enhance its open data capabilities for business loan affordability assessments and deliver £1bn in lending over the next two years.

Credit Kudos uses Open Banking data to provide a holistic, up-to-date view of both individuals’ and business’ finances. This helps lenders understand the current financial position of the applicant and offer them the right lending at the right time.

Through this partnership, Atom will use Credit Kudos’ categorisation and risk insights to automate underwriting assessments, enabling real-time decisions and improving the customer experience compared to traditional paper based processes. The Durham based bank will be able to immediately verify income and understand what credit repayments a small business can afford.

The partnership between Atom and Credit Kudos will initially focus on secured small business lending with plans to expand this to unsecured business lending and to support its residential mortgage lending by the end of 2021.

In future, these enhanced insights will also allow Atom to offer loans to smaller and younger businesses which do not have assets to secure against finance, and Credit Kudos’ predictive forecasting will help Atom reduce the risk of defaults.

Edward Twiddy, chief customer officer at Atom bank, said: “Our partnership with Credit Kudos will allow us to further expand the range and accelerate the pace of our lending. We’re delighted to be working with another fintech challenger to bring insights based on Open Banking data into the heart of Atom’s decision making – both for business customers and for our award winning mortgages.

“After a year when we’ve tripled the amount of business lending on our books, we’re now well set to take Atom on to even greater levels of efficiency and engagement thanks to the investment we’re making with Credit Kudos.”

Freddy Kelly, CEO and founder of Credit Kudos, added: “Over the past year it’s been increasingly difficult for lenders to understand the current financial situation of individuals and businesses. Traditional credit reports are not up-to-date or extensive enough, but Open Banking data allows us to provide lenders with a real-time, holistic overview of an individual or businesses’ finances, as well as a prediction of future circumstances.

“Our partnership will help Atom bank make significant advances to its services and support even more small businesses in the coming months and years.”