Funding platform integration with Open Banking

As Sparkybit developed a platform that would perform as a virtual CFO for SME’s business owners in search of grants, loans, equity, or saving opportunities.

A customer applied their business to the Swoop platform to see all possible options of funding, loans, mortgages, equity, etc, available for a particular business. This availability was the point: a business owner was meant to see only matching and relevant opportunities, proposed on the basis of their business financial indicators like revenue, EBITDA, EVA, Gross Margin, etc.

The platform, developed by Sparkybit, allowed to analyze tons of accounting data with a custom-made algorithm. And the outputs provided by the solution led hundreds of businesses to successful financial solutions.

When Competition and Market Authority in the United Kingdom introduced the Open Banking, Swoop was one of the first innovators to take the challenge.

Open banking was (and still is) regulated in the UK by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). Only companies authorized by the FCA could use open banking APIs to access banks’ financial information.

For Sparkybit as a key technical partner, it meant taking the Swoop solution through this highly secured and complicated authorization, and then a range of needed API integrations with authorized banks. So that was not a piece of cake to do!

Getting access to open banking meant having an additional, brand new algorithm that analyzed tonnes of financial information about customers’ companies and banks in order to “match a pair”. Sparkybit had also to update the product’s interface to provide the end customers with access to the new features.

When the integration was successfully completed, Swoop end customers had even more than access to a virtual CFO. They also could easily decide which bank to work with, based on profound analytics and financial forecasts for their particular case, but not promising advertising brochures in fancy bank receptions.