Ascendus goes live on Scienaptic’s platform to strengthen SMB lending

By Edlyn Cardoza

Leading global AI-powered credit decision platform provider Scienaptic AI announced that the deployment of its platform at Ascendus is now live. The implementation enhances Ascendus’ credit decisioning and helps the lender make advanced loan decisions for small and medium-sized businesses.

Ascendus is a New York-based online business lender that offers a range of financial products to small and medium-sized businesses. In the three decades of its founding, Ascendus has lent over $255 million to more than 25,300 small businesses nationwide. The organisation’s mission is to provide access to credit to the underserved sections of society across race, gender, ethnicity and financial status. The deployment of Scienaptic’s AI-powered loan decisioning platform will further its reach into small business lending, allowing even more entrepreneurs to have access to the financial services they need to support their businesses.

“The pandemic adversely impacted the personal credit scores of small business owners, which has worked against their ability to obtain capital to grow and expand during the recovery phase of the cycle,” said Paul Quintero, CEO at Ascendus. “Scienaptic’s AI-powered credit decisioning platform updated our existing credit risk algorithm to reduce the emphasis on personal credit, while ensuring the portfolio quality we desired. Even more, Scienaptic’s platform is expected to help us approve up to 30% more SMBs than before, which means more capital for more small business owners.”

“Our partnership with Ascendus will further our mission to empower lenders to make AI-powered advanced loan decisioning and offer better access to credit for entrepreneurs,” said Pankaj Jain, Co-founder and President of Scienaptic. “With credit access, these entrepreneurs, often women and people of color can build assets, can support their families, create employment opportunities for their neighbors and strengthen their communities.”