LHV Bank rolls out upgraded SME Lending system

By Gloria Methri

LHV Bank, the UK’s newest licensed bank, has rolled out a new loan system for its SME Lending division, transitioning to the cloud-based banking system of its SaaS partner, Tuum. This move consolidates the bank’s architecture, enhances resource allocation, and establishes a robust futureproof framework, free of legacy system challenges.

“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,” said Erki Kilu, CEO of LHV Bank.

LHV Bank’s lending division offers UK SMEs commercial property and trading loans up to £5 million. With the lending team based predominantly in Manchester, LHV’s regional focus is a key part of its lending strategy, helping to fuel economic growth in often underserved business hubs.

Tuum, which operates across Europe and the Middle East, offers a cloud-native, modular platform that supports multiple business lines from a single system. Known for being highly configurable with a comprehensive API service offering, Tuum’s system offers a level of flexibility that was a key consideration in LHV Bank’s decision to choose them as a technical partner.

“We took a buy-over-build approach for our lending architecture,” said Kilu. “This approach, combined with the expertise of our partners, allows us to sidestep potential legacy issues and incorporate valuable external insight into our system development”.

Myles Bertrand, CEO of Tuum, added, “Our partnership with LHV Bank is further strengthened by their decision to use the Tuum platform for SME Lending. This follows the successful migration of millions of customer accounts from LHV’s Banking Services business line to the Tuum platform earlier this summer. Clients that operate multiple business lines from our system see the best returns and reduced cost of ownership.”

Last week, LHV Bank entered the personal savings arena with Raisin UK, with the funds from the deposits used to directly support the SME Lending Business line.