BNP Paribas forms strategic partnership with CODE Investing

July 5, 2018

BNP Paribas Asset Management has formed a strategic partnership with CODE Investing, a SME lending platform.

The deal comes as BNP looks to bolster its SME alternative financing platform. BNP will invest in loans to small businesses originated through CODE. As an origination partner to BNP, CODE will offer direct lending access to SME loans between £500,000 and £5m, giving BNP customers easy access to SME lending.

CODE is an institutional marketplace lending platform for SMEs, and is built up by a network of traditional and non-traditional lenders. The platform matches businesses with the best match lender based on credit criteria, in order to boost time to funding.

To date, the platform has helped to facilitate £47m in lending on its platform.

CODE is currently only in operation in the UK, but it is looking to deploy into other markets across Continental Europe.

CODE Investing CEO and founder Ayan Mitra said, “Accessing finance has traditionally been a lengthy and frustrating process for SMEs. CODE aims to deliver a more streamlined, certain, and user-friendly experience to SMEs in search of growth capital.

“With our emphasis on institutional – rather than retail – lenders we believe CODE’s marketplace will ultimately be able to provide SMEs with an aggregate view of financing available to them in the market.”

BNP Paribas has been very fairly in FinTech investments over the past year. Earlier in the year, the bank led a $30m funding round into Digital Reasoning, which uses AI to understand human interactions and behaviours.

It has also launched a couple of FinTech investment funds. At the start of the year it launched a vehicle to back financial services and insurance startups. Last year, it launched a technology-focused fund which would be headed by Parvest SICAV.

Mitra added, “Our institutional partners are able to directly access SME debt more efficiently and in greater volume without compromising their internal lending preferences and credit criteria. We are delighted to be selected by BNPP AM as one of its first origination partners for the SME Alternative Financing platform and look forward to contributing to its success over the coming years.”