Corporate loan application without the red tape: FINSATION supports online application
- Simply faster online: digital solution from CRIFBÜRGEL automates transmission of company financial data
- Data protection-compliant: with the consent of the applicant company, FINSATION uses the financial data transmitted from the DATEV solutions.
- Timely solution: German companies have recently been requesting more loans. However, processing the legally required documents is very time-consuming.
- The digital process is now being rolled out in Germany in a pilot phase.
A new solution from information service provider CRIFBÜRGEL will in future digitalise the loan application process for B2B customers. FINSATION allows digital provision of the applicant company’s financial data. The prerequisite is that the customer and their tax advisor work with DATEV solutions. With the help of this detailed database – created through collaboration between tax advisor and company – this new solution shortens and simplifies the application process, while at the same time complying with all regulations and data protection requirements. The company data are only released for specific use as instructed.
Digitalisation? Urgently needed!
For banks, granting loans still entails a lot of manual, analogue work. The entire process of checking applicants’ creditworthiness and loan eligibility is extremely time consuming. The applications contain a wealth of information: for example, company master data, key figures relating to the company’s financial situation or business data. All this information must be supported by individual documents. Often the data are then processed manually, i.e. laboriously typed out. The time required for the onboarding process of a medium-sized company has thus increased on average from 21 hours in 2017 to 36 hours in 2019.
Business customers complain about lengthy and poorly structured processes. “Digitalisation does not stop at corporate customer business. B2B customers and financial officers no longer want to have to make a trip to the bank in order to submit a loan application; they would rather quickly avail themselves of the bank’s online services. This poses enormous challenges for banks: while they want to digitalise their corporate customer offerings, they are subject to strict requirements as to what information corporate customers must provide,” explains CRIFBÜRGEL managing director Dr Frank Schlein. “The Digital Financial Report has created a basis for addressing the problem. FINSATION supplements this first step with a fully digital process and financial data – also intra-year.”
With FINSATION, a company’s financial data can be transmitted digitally to the bank with just a few clicks. In addition to rapid processing without media disruptions and the flexible output of the available data, based on the specific parameters of the respective bank, the timeliness of the data is a particular advantage: they are generally not older than six weeks, usually originate from the date of the last turnover tax advance return and include important key performance indicators, such as equity, liquidity, debt and liabilities of the company as well as information on its assets and cash flow. The transmission is only carried out with the consent of the authorised and securely authenticated company representative with the involvement of their tax advisor – always tied to a specific purpose, transparently and in accordance with all legal requirements and high security standards.
Reliable process thanks to detailed database
With the consent of the applicant and the involvement of their tax advisor, FINSATION uses the financial data transmitted from the DATEV solutions. Tax advisors and B2B customers jointly prepare the accounts of the predominantly medium-sized German companies (around 2.5 million) using financial accounting systems developed by DATEV. After approval by the person or persons responsible, the available data are used to produce a monthly evaluation of the companies’ financial position. All this already happens today – just not digitalised from end to end. “German companies consider tax advisors and DATEV to be reliable and trustworthy partners. We work with them to exchange the necessary key figures with the bank to open an account, apply for a loan or draw up a lease contract on the companies’ behalf quickly, easily and with a minimum of red tape,” Schlein explains. The streamlined, digital process for credit risk assessment is now being launched in a pilot phase, initially in Germany. The experiences from the pilot phase will then be used to derive measures to develop a sustainable, fast and efficient real-time process.
With FINSATION, the entire application process takes place digitally and in just seven simple steps. These steps can be further optimised after the end of the pilot phase.
- The SME submits a financing enquiry in person or via the Internet.
- The master data are captured and the financing request is forwarded to the bank.
- The bank submits a request to CRIFBÜRGEL to collect the financial data from the SME (via DATEV).
- CRIFBÜRGEL initiates the authorisation request for these data (one-time or recurrent).
- The authorised person at the SME receives a PUSH message from DATEV on their smartphone and grants the request, automatically including tax advice à Authorisation granted.
- CRIFBÜRGEL sends the data (if necessary edited) to the bank for further processing.
- The bank uses the data to check the creditworthiness and loan eligibility and makes its decision. à The borrower receives feedback on the financing decision.
The right solution at the right time
The PwC survey “Wer finanziert die Covid-19-Krise?” (Who is financing the Covid-19 crisis?) found that the number of corporate loans with German banks has been growing since 2015. However, driven by the pandemic, the total portfolio saw a further sharp increase in the first half of 2020, surging to over 1.1 trillion euros for the first time since 2003. Corporate loans thus accounted for 18 per cent of German banks’ interest income. With a year-on-year increase of 6.8 per cent, they clearly outperformed other classes such as consumer loans and construction financing. At the same time, Covid-19 is also driving digitalisation. According to the Mastercard study “Evolution of Banking” published in September 2020, every second German (51 per cent) is considering switching to a digital bank. And since the outbreak of the pandemic, more than one in four Germans (28 per cent) have been conducting financial transactions more frequently via an app or online banking. FINSATION is responding to this new market environment.
Further information is available at: www.finsation.de