MSME and SME finance
Faster answers for small businesses, without lowering your credit standards.
A micro-business owner wants an answer on a phone. A growing company wants a credit team that understands its accounts. Too often both wait while staff chase documents, visit premises and re-key figures. The Zoral Finance Operating System (fOS) gathers data with consent, reads and spreads the financials and recommends a decision under your policy. It works for a one-person business or a mid-sized company.
One credit process, from sole trader to mid-sized company.
One platform runs term financing, working capital lines, equipment and asset leasing, merchant credit, supply chain financing, Islamic SME financing and microfinance for one-person businesses. Government-backed and other financing programmes are each configured as a product with their own eligibility rules. Each case gets the depth of review its size and risk need. Every decision follows your credit policy.
The full picture, without the paper chase.
With the customer’s consent, decisions draw on company registries, bureaus, bank statements read line by line, open banking or real-time payment data, e-invoices, online bookkeeping systems, marketplace sales and location data. For larger businesses, annual reports, including the notes to the accounts, are read and spread automatically.
An underwriter in the box for every relationship manager.
It lists what is still missing, reads and cross-checks uploaded documents, flags those that may be altered, and warns where a case breaks policy. If a manager wants a longer term to make repayments affordable, it sets out the case for and against.
Credit priced and structured to the risk.
Models predict default, fraud, affordability and the likely return on each deal. Pricing, limits, terms and covenants follow from them, so near-prime and new-to-credit businesses can be served at a price that covers the risk. Guarantors and collateral are checked. Your credit officer signs a draft credit memorandum.
Branch, broker or phone: one record, every decision explained.
Micro-businesses can apply on a phone, on a form built to collect what your decision needs. Identity and know-your-business checks run digitally. The applicant is asked for whatever is outstanding, and pre-approval can come without a branch visit. Branch and broker cases use the same policy and one record from application to servicing. Each step is recorded with its reason.
Grow the SME book without growing the back office at the same pace.
Relationship managers spend their time with customers, not forms. Credit officers receive cases already assembled, spread and checked against policy. Risk teams see why each decision was made and how the book performs against plan. Your core stays in place. We have worked with clients regulated by the FCA in the UK, the CFPB in the US and the central banks of Malaysia and Thailand.
For an SME lender, Zoral built machine-learning scorecards for default, pricing, limits and deal structure, from origination through underwriting to servicing. References are available in confidence.
Questions SME lenders ask us
Can one platform serve micro-businesses and larger SMEs?
Yes. A one-person business can be onboarded digitally and decided largely on bank-statement and payment data, while a larger company’s annual reports are spread and analysed in depth. Your policy sets which route each case takes, and when a person must review it.
What data can you use, and what about consent?
Company registries, credit bureaus, bank statements, open banking or real-time payment data where available, e-invoices, bookkeeping systems, online marketplace sales, location data and the documents the customer uploads. Each source is used with the customer’s consent and within local law. You choose which sources apply in each market.
Can we lend to businesses with little or no credit history?
Yes, if pricing and limits reflect the risk. Bank-statement, payment and e-invoice data can show how a business trades before it has a credit record. Models for default, first-payment default and affordability set the price and the limit. The limit can start modest and rise as the business repays. Your risk team sets the appetite. Results are tracked against plan by segment, so the team can see whether a programme reaches the businesses it was meant for, and at what loss.
Who makes the decision, and can our credit committee rely on a prepared memo?
Your people, within the authorities you set. The underwriter in the box prepares the case, checks it against policy and makes a recommendation with reasons. Routine cases can be decided automatically where your policy allows. The rest go to the person with the right authority. The credit memo is a draft. Each figure in it and in the spread links back to the document and page it came from. Your credit officer edits and signs the memo, and both versions are kept.
How do you detect fraud in business applications?
Documents are checked for signs of alteration and cross-checked against each other and against bank and bookkeeping data. Identities of directors and guarantors are verified, and models flag patterns linked to fraud. Your fraud team decides what happens to flagged cases.
Can we run government-backed programmes and Islamic financing on the same platform?
Yes. Each programme is configured as a product, with the eligibility rules, limits, pricing and documents set by your bank or the agency behind it. A change to a programme’s rules is then a configuration change, approved and saved as a new version. Islamic SME financing and microfinance run on the contract structures your Shariah board approves, alongside conventional products where you offer both. Your Shariah board remains the authority; Zoral provides the configurable structures and the evidence trail for its review.
Can brokers and other introducers get a quick, consistent answer?
Yes. Brokers, accountants and other introducers can submit cases through their own portal or from their own systems. They can upload documents and track progress. An indicative answer can come back on the information given, and it is confirmed once documents are checked. The same case gets the same answer whoever handles it, because broker cases run on the same policy and models as any other. You control what each introducer can see. You can also see which introducers bring business that performs, not only volume.
Can we offer small businesses more than finance?
Yes. Through partners you choose, your business customers’ portal can also offer services such as accounting, tax and legal advice, insurance or Takaful protection, and equipment. The bank becomes a partner in running the business, not only a lender. You decide which partners appear and on what terms, within your licence. With the customer’s agreement, you can see which services each business uses, so your relationship managers know what to offer next.
Do your models replace our underwriters’ judgement, and can we keep our own scorecards?
They work alongside it. Zoral’s models predict how profitable each deal is likely to be, as well as whether it will default. Before a model is used, it is compared with your underwriters’ decisions and your current scorecards on cases already decided. Your credit committee sees where the model agrees with them and where it adds to them. Where model and underwriter disagree, the case can go to a more senior credit officer. The platform also runs your own scorecards and rating models. Zoral can add models for conversion, fraud, limits, deal structure, retention and collections. A new model can first run beside the current one without affecting decisions, before it takes over. Your risk team signs off every change.
Do we have to replace our core banking or loan system, and how do we start?
No. Zoral works alongside your existing core and channels. You can start with an assessment of your own lending data, then a proof of concept on past applications. After that, one product goes live in one channel, and more follow in regular releases. The pace depends on the systems Zoral must connect to and on how quickly your credit and risk teams agree the policy. We give a realistic plan after scoping, not before.
How does Zoral support our regulatory obligations?
We have worked with clients regulated by the FCA in the UK, the CFPB in the US and the central banks of Malaysia and Thailand. Where lending to sole traders or small partnerships counts as regulated consumer credit, the platform can apply the separate rules, documents and affordability checks it requires. The obligations stay with your bank. Zoral provides the controls and the record that show how you meet them.
How do you use AI, and who is accountable for decisions?
We use machine learning to predict default and fraud. We use AI for Zoral to help read documents and draft credit analysis, and to help our experts and your teams build and test faster. AI assists, and people approve. Where language models are used, you choose them. They range from enterprise model services to open-weight models your team tunes and hosts, and connect to Zoral fOS through a standard interface (MCP). Client data stays under your governance, within the environments and agreements you control. Credit decisions follow policy your bank approves, and every decision is recorded with its reasons.
Where does Zoral run, who runs it, and is our data portable?
On AWS or Azure in your chosen region, or in your own data centre, to suit local data residency rules. Zoral Document Fabric, which reads your documents, runs in your own AWS or Azure account, or your private cloud, in your region and under your control. Our controls are independently audited under SOC 2, with details on the Zoral Trust Portal. Zoral can run and support the platform for you, your own technology team can run it, or we share the work and hand over as your team grows. Your people run the lending operations. Your data, product definitions and audit history remain yours and can be exported in standard formats.
Who implements it?
Atelier, Zoral’s consulting and implementation team, works with your teams and, where you choose, with your advisers and systems integrators. The same team includes credit specialists who can build and validate small-business decision strategies with your risk team.
Set the SME ambition. Let the evidence make the case.
Bring us your SME growth or financial inclusion targets. We can start by showing the relationship-manager, broker and digital journeys on your products. If you would rather see evidence from your own book first, we can review what your past applications can and cannot predict. We can then test a proof of concept against your underwriters’ decisions. Your approvers then choose the first product and channel for production, under your policy.
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Automate lending, banking and finance operations.
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