P2P backer Varengold Bank offers digital application process for emergency loans
Varengold Bank has partnered with Berlin fintech Kapilendo to offer a fully digital application process for instant loans under Germany’s coronavirus aid programme.
The German bank, which has funding agreements with a number of peer-to-peer lenders across Europe, including the UK’s Assetz Capital, has been approved by Germany’s state-owned development bank KfW to offer loans under the instant loan scheme, for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) impacted by the pandemic.
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The loans are 100 per cent guaranteed by the German federal government. Kapilendo and Varengold Bank have created a fully digital process from application to pay-out.
API services by SCHUFA, the largest German credit bureau, ensure that the eligibility verification process and associated compliance checks can be conducted digitally.
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“We have processed an initial batch of applications, the first of which have already been approved by KfW,” said Christopher Grätz, co-founder and chief executive of Kapilendo.
“Together with Varengold Bank, and with excellent support from KfW, we have managed to provide the German ‘Mittelstand’ with a straightforward and digital access to the KfW instant loan programme.
“This is good news particularly for those companies which have difficulties accessing this programme because they lack a long-standing credit relationship with their principal bank.”
“The KfW instant loan scheme is an aid program which many SMEs in Germany have been waiting for.
“The federal government and the KfW have taken exactly the right step.
“In the current situation it was imperative to create a straightforward and digital access to these instant loans, which we have managed to achieve in cooperation with Varengold Bank.”
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“Providing companies with quick and easy access to capital is most definitely part of Varengold Bank’s mission,” said Frank Otten, member of Varengold Bank’s board of managing directors.
“We are thus really pleased to work with Kapilendo in these challenging times by siding with SMEs, who are facing huge challenges through no fault of their own, and offering them instant, unbureaucratic support.”