Nucleus Commercial Finance Wins “Business Lending Innovation Award” in 2022 FinTech Breakthrough Awards Program

FinTech Breakthrough, an independent market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global FinTech market, today announced that it has selected Nucleus Commercial Finance, the fintech revolutionizing how UK SMEs access finance, as winner of the “Business Lending Innovation Award” in the sixth annual FinTech Breakthrough Awards program.

Nucleus Commercial Finance’s (NCF) automated underwriting and digitized end-to-end user journey, delivers a seamless customer experience. NCF harnesses the true power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning to cope with the surge in demand for its products, providing vital funding decisions and same-day payouts thanks to its robust automated underwriting model.

Following a turbulent 18 months for UK SMEs, NCF responded by becoming an accredited CBILS and RLS lender for the government-backed scheme. The company then processed over 12,000+ CBILS applications through its leading AiDeal system.

NCF has also launched its innovative Business Growth Loans (BGL) – the first product of its kind designed to help businesses with additional funding. BGL are powered by NCF’s award-winning technology, ensuring that SMEs can get decisions and receive funding within hours.

With NCF SMEs can unlock the finance they need at speed, with 90% of application decisions made in less than one hour. The unique combination of its digital-first approach and its experts means that NCF plans to bolster that number, growing ever closer to 100%, whilst reducing decision times further once again.

“Planning ahead is key when it comes to small business funding and whether it’s everyday cashflow or navigating the sudden onset of a crisis like Covid, small and medium sizes businesses need fast, flexible funding options that grow in line with their business growth,” said James Johnson, Managing Director, FinTech Breakthrough. “NCF is delivering on this need, transforming SME lending through ‘breakthrough’ AI-based innovation, which is at the heart of their offering. With NCF, making fast loan decisions and delivering much needed financial support is handled with ease, and we are thrilled to name them as winner of our 2022 ‘Business Lending Innovation Award.’”

The FinTech Breakthrough Awards is the premier awards program founded to recognize the FinTech innovators, leaders and visionaries from around the world in a range of categories, including Digital Banking, Personal Finance, Lending, Payments, Investments, RegTech, InsurTech and many more. The 2022 FinTech Breakthrough Award program attracted more than 3,950 nominations from across the globe.

“It has been a whirlwind two years and we are grateful for this recognition from FinTech Breakthrough. When the market immediately changed following Covid, we were able to pivot instantly. After being early adopters of machine learning, we knew we had the data infrastructure, the know-how and necessary models to ensure SMEs had access to the finance they needed, at the speed at which it was required,” said Chirag Shah, CEO, Nucleus Commercial Finance. “Following the closure of CBILS, we recognized SMEs would be facing a significant funding gap at a time when they needed critical financial support so we stepped up again. We will continue to invest significantly in new technology to utilize the power of advanced machine learning and leverage new tech to deliver a truly unforgettable experience to our customers and brokers alike.”

To date, Nucleus has lent over £2.4bn to thousands of UK businesses.

About FinTech Breakthrough

Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for technology innovation and leadership around the globe, the FinTech Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in Financial Technologies and Services companies and products. The FinTech Breakthrough Awards provide public recognition for the achievements of FinTech companies and products in categories including Payments, Personal Finance, Wealth Management, Fraud Protection, Banking, Lending, RegTech, InsurTech and more. For more information visit FinTechBreakthrough.com.

About Nucleus Commercial Finance

Nucleus Commercial Finance is a true bank alternative, offering a range of business finance products. Nucleus combines award winning technology with the flexibility of an alternative lender alongside the stability and product range of bank finance, providing market leading secured and unsecured loans, business cash advance and a range of asset-based lending products. Nucleus has supported businesses with £1.9bn+ of lending since inception.