Shawbrook Bank and Caple launch strategic partnership

Caple’s lending-as-a-service proposition allows banks and institutional investors to implement large scale SME lending programmes in the UK and The Netherlands.

Shawbrook bank and SME lender Caple have formed a new partnership that will see loans made through the Anglo-Dutch alternative lending platform funded by the specialist savings and lending bank’s deposit base.

The target market for the new loans is UK SMEs turning over between £1m and £50m, of which there are c.36,000 UK firms.

The deal will focus on a new cashflow loan proposition focused on management buy-ins, with Caple sourcing the new lending opportunities between £1m - £10m from larger SMEs through its network of accountants and corporate finance advisors.  

Caple will assess suitable loans and provide the in-depth credit analysis which then will be delivered incomplete and standardised loan files to Shawbrook Bank, founded in 2011, which will make the decision on the loan origination. 

Neil Rudge (pictured), managing director of business finance at Shawbrook Bank, said: “These established businesses, generating significant income and employing huge numbers of people in every sector and region across the UK, are extraordinarily diverse and their funding needs can often be complex. Shawbrook already provides a broad range of specialist funding products to address many of these needs, and working with Caple we can effectively and efficiently deploy capital to even more.” 

Dominic Buch, co-founder and managing partner at Caple, said: “As our strategic relationship with Shawbrook shows, we are both completely aligned in our purpose to close the ‘missing middle’ funding gap. Despite being small in number, missing middle firms make a disproportionate contribution to the economy, employing 3.5m people and turning over £639bn combined. The private sector must find economic ways of supporting them.  Working with Shawbrook, we intend to play our part in doing just that.”

Shawbrook is the second lender with whom Caple provides lending-as-a-service, following a deal in 2019 with BNP Paribas Asset Management, which owns a 10 per cent stake in the firm.