FinTech Enterprise Data ForwardAI has unveiled an update to its Precise API tool to help streamline financial decisions.
First released in 2021, Precise is an application programming interface (API) that offers treasury, accounting and financial data for lending to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The update “provides small business lenders with a faster, more powerful version of the Precise API and enables them to make accurate lending decisions faster,” said FowardAi co-founder and CEO Nick Chandi. , in a press release.
Chandi adds that the tool will also provide lenders with “the scalable, standardized accounting and financial data they need to make fast, informed decisions.”
“A daily challenge that small business lenders face is the ability to quickly and accurately access their accounting and financial data,” said Ciaran Burke, chief operating officer and co-founder of Swoop Funding, in the communicated.
Burke also notes that the new Precise is “faster and more efficient, allowing us to focus our time on growing our business.”
PYMNTS spoke to Chandi shortly after Precision’s launch about his company’s technology, which pulls data from accounting systems and feeds it back. So when a bank integrates this technology and allows access to its payment rails, invoices and due dates can be delivered, outstanding invoices can be paid, and accounting systems can be updated.
“So far, we’ve heard from two very large financial institutions, who are very interested in solving this payment problem for their customers,” Chandi said, noting their preference to use their own rail rather than external processors. like PayPal.
“These FinTechs or banks are competing to keep customers on their website [by] giving them more features, more functionality and keeping them more engaged,” Chandi said.
PYMNTS also looked at some of the lending challenges SMEs face in a recent conversation with Hicham Oudghiri, CEO of Enigma Technologies.
As Oudghrir told Karen Webster, there has been a sea change in all financial services, especially in terms of lending.
There was a time when getting a loan meant an SME would go to a bank branch, sit down with managers and other credit professionals, and have candid discussions about the state and the future. of their business.
Then COVID arrived, transforming the lender-customer relationship into something connected through a mobile device. Crucial borrower information is collected through the phone connected to the bank account.
For lenders, Oudghrir said, it is more difficult to navigate through distorted data and trends that could obscure true business performance and attractiveness as borrowers.
The pandemic and stimulus payments have helped swell consumers’ bank accounts and allowed them to keep spending, which in turn has boosted the fortunes of SMEs. Now things are much more uncertain and some SMEs are struggling more than ever while others are doing well.
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