London-based Ormsby Street is bringing its credit checking tool for SMEs to Germany. The fintech startup will partner with Deutsche Bank, who make the solution available to its small business customers. The move into Germany is part of a larger expansion for Ormsby Street; the company plans to enter markets in the United States, Australia, Poland, and other European markets within a year.

Ormsby Street Managing Director Martin Campbell pointed to the problem of “late payment culture,” which he called a major problem that impacts cash-flow for German small businesses. “There is a growing need in Germany for an easy way to check the credit status and payment performance of customers, and CreditHQ meets that requirement head-on,” Campbell said.

Pictured: Ormsby Street Managing Director Martin Campbell demonstrated CreditHQ at FinovateSpring 2016 in San Jose.

“Three things are needed for a business to run optimal cash flow,” Campbell explained from the Finovate stage earlier this year. “Good data about customers and their financial health, insight and understanding to know what to do with that data and how to recognize problems, and finally, the tools to act effectively when those problems arise.”

This is where CreditHQ comes in, helping small businesses manage their cash flow and credit risk. The solution pulls data from credit-reference agencies and displays this information to the business with a simple “traffic light” type of indicator that makes it easy to recognize which companies are most likely to pay invoices promptly and which are not. And when integrated with the company’s accounting software, CreditHQ’s risk management feature takes raw data and provides a graphic overview of which invoices are the most problematic (i.e., most expensive, the most overdue, or the greatest credit risk). Further, CreditHQ makes it easy for the business owner to take action. Emails and letters can be sent directly from the CreditHQ platform, and business owners can even set up a fully automated CreditHQ debt-collection process.

Campbell said that small-business failure-rates drop by 30% for companies using CreditHQ. “If you’re a bank and you’re looking at your small-business failure-rate, just imagine the impact a 30% reduction of that failure-rate would have on your bottom line,” he said. Moreover, Campbell added that the technology also helps build relationships between banks and their small business partners, including giving the bank insight into potential financing needs of the small business. “At the point when a customer becomes aware that they may need invoice financing, or an overdraft, or a particular kind of insurance,” Campbell explained, “the bank can be right there, can put that offer right in front of the customer, and can generate the lead directly back to a telephone or in-branch team who can then use that data to engage with their customers.”

Headquartered in London and founded in 2014, Ormsby Street demonstrated CreditHQ at FinovateSpring 2016. The company has a staff of 14; forecasts 2016 revenues of more than £2 million; and 27,000 users. In 2015, Ormsby Street was a finalist at the Vendor Excellence Awards and the CreditToday Awards, and it was recognized as one of 100 best startups that same year.