Credit scoring platform Open Risk Exchange (ORX) will offer free credit scores for all UK-registered businesses.
Unlike traditional paid and restricted credit bureau offerings, the London-based FinTech company will allow more than four million businesses to check the financial stability of their own business and that of their customers and suppliers immediately and at no cost.
The platform works by using statistical modelling and machine learning algorithms to deliver one of the most accurate business risk models in the market.
This means results are delivered faster and more accurately than has historically been the case.
Following a series of tests with high-street banks, alternative financing providers and insurers, ORX was found to outperform the accuracy of some of the leading commercial credit scorecards offered by the likes of Experian, Equifax and Dun & Bradstreet.
Kanishk Walia, co-founder and CEO of ORX said: “The importance of consumer credit scores has been well publicised in recent years.
“The market has embraced the available technology and advanced, yet the same cannot be said for businesses looking for the same information. There has been no ‘Clearscore for business’ until now.
“Our platform means businesses looking to obtain finance and check the risk of their trading partners, or lenders and insurers looking to price the risk of business applicants are given more accurate data to make better decisions quicker than ever before.”
Like the consumer equivalents, ORX provides businesses with a credit score based on past financial history and performance in addition to which it also incorporates a range of publicly available structured and unstructured data sources.
The platform will also be used by financial institutions when determining risk levels, insurance premiums and the cost of borrowing, which means ORX will be working closely, both with traditional sources of finance such as banks, new and alternative financing providers and insurance companies.
The platform also offers an API on request for users requiring high-volume programmatic access to its scores.
The company, previously known as TypeScore, was founded in November 2015 by co-founders André Röhrig and Kanishk Walia.
Following its emergence from Entrepreneur First, it raised a seed round of funding from Passion Capital in May 2016, to fuel research and product development in order to ready the platform for launch.
Eileen Burbidge, representing Passion Capital on the company’s board of directors, said: “When sourcing finance, how much is available and at what cost are absolute fundamentals to businesses.
“In a world of instantaneous decisions and big data, obtaining a credit score should be simple, quick and accurate. That is exactly what ORX enables.”