LHV Bank Collaborates With Tuum on Small Business Lending

LHV Bank has implemented an upgraded loan system for its small and medium-sized business (SMB) lending division.

The U.K. licensed bank has partnered with cloud-native platform Tuum to transition to a cloud-based banking system, LHV Bank said in a Thursday (Sept. 7) post on LinkedIn.

This move is aimed at eliminating the constraints of legacy systems, enabling the bank to quickly launch new products, streamlining its architecture and optimizing its resource allocation, according to the post.

“This collaboration aligns with our sentiment to use value-adding technology partners to deliver the best client-facing offering,” LHV Bank said in the post.

LHV Bank’s SME Lending division focuses on providing commercial property and trading loans up to 5 million pounds (about $6 million) to U.K. SMBs, with a particular emphasis on underserved business hubs like Manchester, Fintech Finance News reported Thursday.

Tuum, whose cloud-native platform operates across Europe and the Middle East, offers a highly configurable and modular system that supports multiple business lines from a single platform, the report said.

LHV Bank’s decision to choose Tuum as a technical partner was influenced by the platform’s flexibility and comprehensive application programming interface (API) service offering, per the report. By adopting a buy-over-build approach, LHV Bank avoids potential legacy issues and incorporates valuable external insights into their system development.

“This integration with Tuum is a key step in our continuous effort to provide a framework that enables our SME Lending business to develop a wide range of new products quickly, allowing us to swiftly adapt to changing market demands,” LHV Bank CEO Erki Kilu said in the report.

Estonia-based Tuum was founded in 2019 by banking and FinTech executives and provides what it calls a flexible and modular platform. The company’s cloud-based core banking network allows financial and non-financial companies to introduce products and services that meet customer needs, boost sales and build loyalty.

In another recent partnership, Tuum teamed up with Marqeta to help European banks and FinTechs build flexible card programs. The combination of Tuum’s core banking solution and Marqeta’s digital payment experiences will enable Tuum to offer its customers a pre-integrated FinTech solution that will accelerate their time to market.