NewTech Friday: creditshelf – Shaping digital SME financing

SME Banking
24/11/2023 Interview
profile picture of Daniel Bartsch

Daniel Bartsch

Creditshelf

Co-founder and CFO

In this interview, we sit down with Daniel Bartsch, Co-Founder and CFO of creditshelf, Germany's leading digital SME financer, to discuss the company’s inception and their mission to provide fast and accessible loans to small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as their future plans to expand their offerings and funding base to better serve their customers.


What led to the creation of creditshelf?

My co-founder and I spent many years of our careers in banking. During this time, we noticed that rapidly available, unsecured financing was difficult to obtain for a large proportion of small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany. Yet they are the heart of the German economy and rely on these funds to generate growth and thus labor and prosperity for everyone. The processes in traditional bank lending are often lengthy and manual. For entrepreneurs, there is nothing more frustrating than spending months discussing new financing with the bank, and potentially receive a rejection and have to start all over again – or even lose the contract they originally wanted the loan for. 

With digitalization looming decades ago, we figured that somehow SME lending had to work without collateral, efficiently and digitally – that's what finally drove us both to found creditshelf in 2014. Since then, our goal has been to run the entire credit process via our digital financing platform. At the heart of this is our unique, data-driven risk analysis, which helps our credit analysts make informed decisions quickly. The unsecured loans are then financed by professional and institutional investors who are well placed to assess the risk-return profile. And it is the customer who ultimately benefits from this setup, as we can provide an initial feedback on the financeability of their project within 48 hours.

Want to keep reading?

Create a web account to get access to more insights

Related news & insights

SME Banking
05/02/2025 Article

Celebrating excellence in SME banking: The 2025 awards & community

If you want to showcase your excellence in SME banking, participating is simple and free of charge. Just complete the...

Digital Reinvention
03/02/2025 News

Open House Group introduces cryptocurrency payments for real estate transactions

Initially supporting Bitcoin and Ethereum, this initiative enhances customer convenience while leveraging the company’s strengths in property search, purchase, management,...

SME Banking
30/01/2025 Study

From insights to impact: The journey towards unified services in SME Banking

Discover the transformative power of unified services in SME banking. In the third and final installment of our series, we...

Mobility
30/01/2025 News

DriveScore launches world's first discounted car finance for good drivers

Through partnerships with lenders such as Zopa Bank, Admiral, AA Car Finance, and My Car Credit, DriveScore users with high...

29/01/2025 News

BNP Paribas Personal Finance partners with Apple to offer consumer financing in France

BNP Paribas Personal Finance, under its Cetelem brand, is introducing new financing solutions for Apple customers in France.

Digital Reinvention
28/01/2025 News

Elon Musk’s X expands into financial services with Visa partnership

X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced the launch of the X Money Account, a digital wallet and peer-to-peer payment service powered...

Mobility
28/01/2025 News

CA Personal Finance & Mobility strengthens partnership with GAC Group to boost electric vehicle leasing in China

Crédit Agricole Personal Finance & Mobility has finalized a significant milestone by acquiring a 50% stake in GAC Finance Leasing...

Digital Reinvention
27/01/2025 News

Nu Mexico doubles its customer base, reaches 10 million customers in just one year

Since its entry into the Mexican market in 2019, the fintech company has expanded its offerings from a single credit...