Small business lending platform Kabbage added a big name to its list of bank partners today. The Atlanta-based company announced it has teamed up with Scotiabank, a Canadian bank that contributed to the alt-lender’s $135 million funding round last October.
The partnership licenses Kabbage’s lending technology to Scotiabank, which will co-brand loans offered to small business customers in Mexico and Canada. Through the agreement, Kabbage will automate the onboarding process, underwrite and service the loans, and provide ongoing monitoring throughout the life of the loan. Scotiabank will keep the majority of loans on its balance sheet; Kabbage will have the option to buy a minority share.
Scotiabank will pilot the new offering in Mexico with 12-month term loans, and in Canada with 6-month term loans. The bank is using a phased-in approach and will launch for current, non-borrowing small business customers starting next month.
Scotiabank is the third international bank and the first bank in Canada to select Kabbage to power its online business loans in the past six months. Kabbage CEO Rob Frohwein says that the global reach “demonstrates the scalability of Kabbage to power lending for organizations worldwide.”
At FinovateSpring 2015 Kabbage unveiled the Kabbage Card, a payment card that lets small business owners carry a financing tool in their wallet to pay for supplies needed to keep their business running. The company’s CTO Andy Badstubner presented at FinDEVr San Francisco 2015 on how to integrate into the Kabbage platform.
Founded in 2009, Kabbage maintains similar partnerships with ING and Santander. A few weeks back, the company was featured on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list and last month achieved a milestone by extending $2 billion in loans in five years.