Teaming up for instant lending with Kabbage & ING
Today we’d like to show you an example of how our platform is used in practice. We’ve recently teamed up with ING and Kabbage to work on ING Instant Lending: A service that enables European SMEs to get a loan instantly by using Kabbage’s automated-lending technology.
When ING decided to enter the instant lending market in Europe, Kabbage was the obvious partner. Their automated-lending platform provides small businesses in the US with fast loans. Kabbage uses advanced algorithms to review online data about the business and decides within minutes whether to approve the loan.
ING took equity in Kabbage and started using Kabbage’s technology for ING Instant Lending. All they needed now was a third party that could handle the disbursements and installments. They found one but then, for various reasons, it was forced to pull out. ING needed a solution, and they needed one fast.
An unusual technical requirement was that the transactions provider would need to be able to pay out to different loan applicants rather than to a fixed merchant, as is normally the case with PSPs. ING therefore needed a party that could do this or would be able to do this quickly. This is where we came in. We had already worked with ING on its Kassa Compleet, ePay and Checkout payment solutions. ING is a big company with many departments, each with their own requirements. They knew from experience that our platform was adaptive enough to deal with this.
ING invited us to submit a tender. While we didn’t meet all of ING and Kabbage’s requirements at that point, we were confident we could deliver in time because of the extensible nature of our platform and its modular design.
We won the tender. The next day found our development team talking to the Kabbage one. Hat tip to them: they’re highly capable and there’s no way we would have been able to move so fast if they weren’t so great to work with. The platform integration was smooth: the full project took six weeks to complete from start to finish. That included briefings, design, planning, platform setup, building all extensions, integration, testing and launch.
So here’s how all parties come together:
ING is manager of the process and issues the loan to the business. They are the point of contact for the customer. The customer applies for a loan online and this is where the Kabbage platform kicks. It assesses the business’s performance and decides whether to approve the loan. If the loan is approved, this is where the Ginger platform kicks in. Ginger is responsible for all transactions with the lender, using SEPA Credit Transfer for the disbursements and SEPA Direct Debit for the installments. We make sure the loan is paid into the right account.
Ginger now processes transactions for ING’s instant lending service in France and Italy.
For us, projects like these are a validation of our platform and the confirmation of our design choices. We were able to deliver within a short timeframe and third party integrations were effortless.
If you need something similar — or something completely different — contact us. If it’s related to financial applications, we can probably help.
For those new to Ginger, we’re helping product teams build better financial applications faster. Come check us out.
