October, an online lender serving European SMEs, has launched a new predictive risk tool to instantly respond to requests for State Guaranteed Loans.
Like other regions, the COVID-19 crisis has hit European businesses hard. In order to help them get back on their feet, the French government has announced a €300 billion plan of state-guaranteed loans (Prêts Garantis par l’Etat – PGE). Reportedly, the COVID relief poicy has been a massive success and nearly 500,000 companies have already approached the banks for State Guaranteed Loans and this number continues to grow. The Fintech October, along with traditional banks, can now originate these loans.
To cope with the high volume of these loan requests, October has launched a new instant decision tool to speed up the granting of a secured loan. The feature uses machine learning techniques to assess the risk of a business default even more quickly.
October’s data team reports that there have been more than 130,000 queries submitted to the model and the results have been convincing. Tests have shown that algorithms can provide extremely precise results. The time required to decide on the granting of a loan is thus considerably reduced. Businesses can receive a response to their funding request in minutes.
“In today’s environment, thanks to government guarantees that encourage our lenders to continue to support SMEs, we can leverage all the work done over the past 5 years on our data, technologies, and processes to speed up and simplify even more access to loans. Borrowers can get their credit requests answered very quickly and focus on the basics, ” said Olivier Goy, founder and CEO of October.
The projects that benefit from the state guarantee are seeking funding between €30,000 and €250,000. These companies will be able to receive an instant response and available funds within a few days. The “Instant Project” tool is operational in France and Italy.
