Lendica and EBizCharge Partner on Embedded Business Credit Solution

Lendica and EBizCharge have partnered to launch an embedded business credit solution for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in the United States.

This collaboration brings together Lendica’s embedded artificial intelligence (AI) lending capabilities and EBizChange’s platform for payment solutions, the companies said in a Tuesday (April 16) press release.

With the new service, called the iBranch, businesses using the EBizCharge platform can borrow money from Lendica, according to the release.

“With the iBranch, we’re adding financial power to our platform, allowing our customers to access credit without leaving the EBizCharge platform,” Matt Rogers, vice president of strategic alliances at EBizCharge, said in the release.

This integration of payments and finance aims to help businesses streamline their operations, enhance their overall efficiency, and grow and scale faster, according to the release.

The solution also taps into the growing trend of offering embedded lending as a way to meet the credit needs of SMBs. Embedded business loan origination is expected to grow 125% year over year, the release said.

For banks and nonbank lenders, Lendica’s AI-driven credit underwriting processes rich, embedded datasets and helps provide instant decision-making for transactions like buy now, pay later (BNPL) and other cash management tools, per the release.

“Traditional small business credit is very expensive, with the average borrower paying 61% APR,” Jared Shulman, CEO and co-founder of Lendica, said in the release. “Our embedded lending programs can dramatically lower rates to our customers and we’re excited to bring them to market with a leader in the space.”

PYMNTS Intelligence has found that one of the sectors showing broad interest in embedded finance is logistics and wholesale trade.

As businesses in this sector focus on optimizing embedded finance solutions, there’s been a surge of demand for innovative features like digital wallets, installment payments and BNPL, according to “The Embedded Finance Ecosystem: Logistics and Wholesale Trade Edition,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and Carat from Fiserv collaboration.

In another recent move, Lendica and CSG Forte said in January that they formed a strategic partnership to allow SMBs to borrow money directly from their software vendors instead of traditional financial institutions.

CSG Forte, a customizable digital payments firm, will bring the embedded lending model to its independent software vendor (ISV) partners and their merchants.