ThinCats selects Mambu to scale and expand its SME lending offering

By Joy Dumasia

ThinCats, a leading alternative finance provider to mid-sized SMEs, has selected Mambu‘s leading cloud banking technology platform to scale at pace and expand its SME lending offering. ThinCats was launched as a result of the global financial crisis to help SMEs that traditional lenders were underserving. Since then, it has grown to become a leading alternative lender focusing on the funding needs of approximately 450,000 mid-sized businesses across the UK.

With a current loan book of more than GBP650 million and ambitions to surpass the GBP2 billion mark in the next few years, Mambu’s flexible and composable cloud platform will enable ThinCats’ ambitions to support the growth of many more mid-sized businesses.

Billy Ferguson, Chief Technology Officer at ThinCats, said: “SMEs are critical to the UK’s economy, but many face challenges in securing funding or encounter lengthy application processes, in part, due to legacy technology platforms. As an alternative lender, we aim to fill this gap in the market by providing speed and flexibility, creating bespoke funding structures and transparency during the funding process. We needed a technology partner that understood our vision and could support delivery. As a cloud-native business, Mambu’s platform aligns with ThinCats’ technology strategy and provides a wider ecosystem of FinTech products to facilitate our growth aims. It provides a parameter-based product allowing ThinCats to service existing business and develop new products at pace. This ability to rapidly configure new products and connect to partner systems was key to the decision to choose Mambu.”

According to a recent Mambu report, more than two-thirds of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) globally have been unable to secure sufficient funding on at least one or more occasions. It also showed the vast majority (92%) of SMEs are open to changing lenders for different or simpler digital support demonstrating the opportunity for new market entrants.

Richard Morgans, Head of UK and Ireland at Mambu, said: “SMEs represent a significant market opportunity, but, if they struggle to access capital through traditional means, alternative finance lenders like ThinCats are in a prime position to help. This is a rapidly growing segment of the market, and we expect to see the business scale rapidly as demand for non-traditional lending continues to grow.”