Deutsche Bank in partnership talks with Rishi Khosla led OakNorth: Source   

DEUTSCHE BANK is in discussion with Indian origin led British financial technology firm OakNorth to use its credit analysis and monitoring platform.

German multinational lender examining Rishi Khosla co-founded OakNorth’s technology with an aim to formalise the partnership, Reuters reported quoting a source with the knowledge of the discussions.

Chief executive officer Khosla led financial firm uses data about a prospective borrower such as the financial performance of its peers and sentiment about its brand from online reviews to help inform lending decisions.

The German financial giant is trying to return to its base as a lender to firms in its home market as part of broad restructuring plans.

OakNorth, one of the UK’s most valuable financial technology firm helps small medium enterprises (SMEs) to secure debt finance.

London based firm says its financial technology platform supports lenders to make good decisions on small business loans by utilising the level of data analytics that lenders only use for $25 million-plus medium-sized deals.

The British bank aims to expand its business in the US, continental Europe and ‘two to three’ Asian markets. The business is also planning to increase the number of its staff members rapidly.

Khosla recently said that his firm will ink deals with new banks in the near future adding that his firm has already engaged with several banks and financial institutions to expand its reach around the globe.

Earlier this month, in its first public enterprise-wide partnership since launching a licensing strategy in 2018, Khosla’s business inked a five-year deal to provide its technology platform to the Dutch lender, NIBC Bank.

OakNorth is valued at $2.8 billion with a £338m funding round backed by Japan’s SoftBank.

It has also tripled its profits from £10.6m in 2018 to £33.9m.

In the UK, OakNorth has lent circa £3.3bn to hundreds of businesses. It has received about £600m of repayments and a large proportion of borrowers are now repeat customers, according to Khosla.

These loans lent have directly helped with the creation of 10,000 new homes and 13,000 new jobs across the UK, OakNorth claims.