Network with peers, and gain insights about key trends reshaping SME lending.

Before things quiet down for summer holiday season, we wanted to gather the SME lending community at our offices to unpick the latest trends in the industry. Warm welcome to join us for this breakfast event!

How can lenders achieve better and faster credit processes, or gain new market share? What type of technologies should lenders stay on top of?

We will provide the answers on June 15th, 8.30-10.15, with the agenda starting at 9.00

**RSVP** to the event through this Google Form.  
<https://lnkd.in/dvBfcc42>

**It starts with data**

- The case for Open Finance and real-time financial insights
- Lessons from Sweden’s first embedded, accounting data lender

**Artificial (Credit) Intelligence**

- How AI can assist lenders in offering superior financing services
- Industry insights, from forecasting to automated sorting

**Open Finance Playbook**

- SME attitudes towards lenders and data sharing (Monto survey)
- Getting buy-in from SMEs to sharing financial data
- What technology partners suit your use case?

**Panel Discussion featuring lenders and tech providers (TBC):**

- Trends in data-driven credit decisioning
- How can lenders establish better data processing capabilities?
- Opportunities in the Swedish SME financing market

**Practical info**

Monto's address is Kungsgatan 12-14. When you enter, ignore the first pair of elevators and proceed through the glass doors, then ride the elevator to floor 8. Contact Andreas Larsen at +46 70 938 16 73 if you need any assistance.

Welcome to Monto's offices on June 15

Monto Breakfast Event, June 15th

Here are 5 reasons your lending business should use real-time data from accounting software.


Small and medium-sized businesses are, still today, massively underserved when it comes to getting access to financing. One major reason behind this is the inability among many lenders to accurately assess the performance of their borrowers.

SME businesses generally have fluctuating, fast-growing or seasonal revenue generation. Their circumstances change fast. This means that lenders who don’t have the latest information available (which is most lenders) will either have to deny applications from solid businesses, or take excessive risk.

Here are some common data sources that SME lenders are using:

- Generic credit bureau data
- Collecting statements and invoices from customers, ad-hoc
- Too much reliance on historical data, like dated annual reports
- Open banking data that provides only a limited understanding


The potential of real-time accounting data


New technology and connected services are changing the lending landscape. Open finance – a growing access to financial data that can be shared between financial providers and businesses –  promises to change SME financing for the better.

Detailed financial data basically captures the heart and soul of a business, and gives lenders opportunities to vastly improve the speed, efficiency and intelligence of the funding process.

“Solutions that provide access to comprehensive real-time data from the accounting systems used by SME businesses empowers lenders to make more informed decisions and, ultimately, increase their acceptance rate without adding risk,” says Leonard Schreij, the CEO of Monto. “If managed right, it’s a win-win for lenders and borrowers.”

**READ:** [SMEs are open to sharing their financial data – are lenders ready to act?](/blog/smes-are-open-to-sharing-their-real-time-data-survey)

- Invoices
- Balance sheet
- Income Statement
- Vouchers and non-financial events
- Financial KPIs & metrics

Although there is a broad spectrum of possible uses for real-time financial data that vary in terms of sophistication and required investment, any lender that involves this data  into their funding process can find improvements.

Here, we list 5 key benefits of using real-time financial data in your funding process.

1. Improved onboarding and customer experience


Too many lenders overwhelm their customers with form filling and other time-consuming interaction.

[When we recently surveyed 700 SMEs in Sweden](/blog/sweden-smes-financing-survey), 7 in 10 (!) businesses said they have to manage paper documents during an application process. Nevermind the cumbersome user experience – the information gathered manually from customers and other providers is likely insufficient to give lenders a realistic picture.

By facilitating connectivity to accounting data through APIs – either in-house or through third-party providers – lenders can make data sharing a seamless part of onboarding or add-on financing. This reduces operational costs related to data collection while enabling faster application handling and payouts.

[***How Float enhanced its onboarding process with Monto:*** *“Our applicants can grant access to their accounting software in seconds"*](/blog/float-lending-monto-customer-case-2023)

Lenders need accurate information in order to make solid decisions. Through a comprehensive view of SME financial performance based on up-to-date information, your team can assess risk more accurately.

With accounting and invoicing data synced automatically, lenders can gain the confidence to extend credit to young and promising businesses – for instance based on stable invoicing activity or strong ledger quality. Real-time data also empowers lenders to understand how everything from pandemics to price shocks is affecting borrowers.

Traditionally, lenders have been providing financing services through a one-size-fits-all approach. This is problematic for the SME segment, where the only certainty is change.


Traditionally, lenders have been providing financing services through a one-size-fits-all approach. This is problematic for the SME segment, where the only certainty is change. Some businesses have seasonal dips in demand whereas others expand at breakneck speed, and yet others require capital for major one-off investments.

Few lenders are sensitive to these nuances and fail to adapt to their borrowers’ changing needs. Equipped with a deep enough understanding of a borrower's journey, a lender can reach out and offer add-on financing at just the right time (and grow customer retention and satisfaction along the way).

4. Provide a personalised financing service


To a growing extent, SME businesses want financing services to be seamless, simple and personalised. In a similar vein that consumers learned to expect frictionless and curated services – from streaming to e-commerce – small and medium-sized businesses have grown accustomed to more and better choices, in no small part thanks to fintech challengers.

In fact, both old and new lenders have made progress on speed and simplicity through digital user journeys. Much fewer have backed this up with personalisation, which naturally requires an in-depth, ongoing understanding of customers.

A personalised financing service, ideally, should be the business’ reward in exchange for sharing data. For instance, lenders can offer discounts on interest rates or fees; adjust the loan limit in line with invoicing activity; or provide bundled service offerings.

Finding that balance between caution and confidence often depends on having the right information available, at the right time.




5. Get a leg up on the competition in tough times


Lenders are always ready to go to great lengths to avoid excessive defaults. Especially in today’s shaky market environment, banks as well as alternative lenders are becoming more conservative and wary of their risk exposure.

But, as the saying goes, never waste a crisis.

This is a great opportunity to leverage technology to capture business that your competitors won’t. Finding that balance between caution and confidence often depends on having the right information available, at the right time.

A key advantage of real-time accounting data is how it complements other data sources (like open banking) to create a holistic financial picture of a business. There's also an opportunity analyse historical datasets in order to project future cash flow generation, allowing your lending business to see the future before it happens.

**Keen to learn more?**

Monto’s API is your single access point to SME accounting data in Sweden.

Check out our offering

at [www.monto.ai](http://www.monto.ai)

How real-time financial data can power up your SME lending business


5 ways that real-time data can power up your SME lending business

Float is on a mission to give SaaS and subscription businesses easy access to non-dilutive capital. The company recently partnered with Monto to access key financial data on customers in Sweden, in real time.


Founded in 2019, Float has pioneered a funding alternative tailored to fast-growth SaaS businesses. The company’s founders recognised that the funding process for most SaaS businesses tends to be slow, antiquated or hard to access.

At the same time, venture capital is hardly an ideal option in many cases.

“If your growth engine is working and you need capital to accelerate the business, then a non-dilutive loan from Float can be fantastic. The business doesn’t have to give up equity or board seats, or be in a perpetual fundraising mode,” says Jannis Koehn, co-founder and CFO at Float.

The foundation of Float’s service is an easy, intuitive user journey. Looking to enhance it further, Float turned to Monto’s financial data API.

“We’re obsessed with the customer experience. Our goal is to make funding as easy as using a SaaS product. This really pushed us to look for solutions that make the application process as easy as possible, throughout the lending journey.”

Making financial data sharing fast and effortless




Float’ focus market is the Nordics, and the company is also present in the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and the Baltics. The lending challenger currently has a SEK 1bn credit facility available for SaaS and subscription businesses in those markets.

Sharing financials is very easy with Monto. Our applicants can grant access to their accounting software in seconds.


Through Monto’s API connectivity, Float can perform a sound credit analysis on its customers based on information from accounting software.

With income statements, balance sheets and other financial metrics synced automatically, Float has been able to drastically improve its data collection. This results in a better user experience, saving customers the hassle of emailing financial statements back and forth.

“The process of sharing financials is very easy with Monto. Our applicants can grant access to their accounting software in seconds. This allows us to provide an integrated user journey to the customers who are open to sharing their accounting data,” says Jannis Koehn.

Monto’s solution makes it easier for us to process financial data, because it comes exactly in the format we need.


Monto’s service also supports Float in the credit assessments of both new and existing borrowers. Float’s customers can borrow a certain share of their ARR through a flexible credit line that grows in line with the company’s revenues.

“Monto’s solution makes it easier for us to process financial data, because it comes exactly in the format we need – standardised and categorised. The solution also allows us to follow up on the performance of existing borrowers, which makes granting additional loans through the credit line more convenient.”

Visual interface makes sense of API data


Monto recently launched an app that makes financial metrics from the API available in one view. Float’s team values this feature because it enables the credit team to quickly gain an understanding of a business’ financial status – without having to involve developers to set up an API.

“Many financial data companies offer APIs only, which might work well for clients with dozens of software developers. But this makes it more difficult for people in credit or commercial roles to get a feeling for the product. Monto’s visual interface solves that.”

What Float appreciates about Monto’s service:


* Real-time data integrations replace manual data uploads 

* Standardised data makes it easier to analyse financial performance

* Clean and easy-to-understand documentation

* Extensive coverage of the Swedish market

* Not just an API – visual interface provides an easy overview

Float specializes in non-dilutive growth capital for European SaaS and subscription companies and offers up to 70% of their ARR as part of a transparent and flexible credit facility. The sign-up is fast and simple, and Float takes no shares, warrants, or personal guarantees by the founders. Sign up today to learn more! 

Monto helps Nordic SME lenders harness the power of real-time data. We combine smart technology and deep industry know-how to help fintechs, banks, lending brokers and BaaS platforms make better credit decisions, streamline processes and enhance the customer experience.

Our API unlocks instant access to up-to-date income statements, ledger quality, financial ratios, and more – fetched from leading accounting software providers in Sweden. We also provide a visual interface that allows credit teams to gain a comprehensive financial understanding of their connected borrowers.

Float speeds up onboarding and credit analysis with Monto


Float lending monto customer case 2023

The majority of SME borrowers see the value in sharing real-time financial data with their lenders, shows a survey by Monto. Time for your lending business to take note, pronto.


1. Why SME lenders should work with real-time financial data

2. SME attitudes when it comes to sharing financial data (Sweden)

3. How SMEs perceive lenders’ ability to understand their performance today

4. How your business can access fresh financial data with one API

Most SME lenders make credit decisions based on outdated or substandard information — previous years’ annual reports, static credit bureau information, or financial statements provided ad-hoc by businesses themselves.

These manual methods of data collection (and analysis) are ill-suited to serving the SME segment. The needs and circumstances of newly founded, growing, or seasonally fluctuating businesses differ vastly from those of big corporations. The industry has only recently started to act on this.

To get financing on fair terms, SME businesses need lenders to truly understand their business, day to day. They also want credit lines that grow with their revenues, seamless onboarding, fast payouts, and tailored prices.

All of these things are, ideally, founded upon access to real-time financial data.

1. Real-time data brings new opportunities for SME lenders



Up-to-date financial data from accounting software has the potential to transform how lenders do business with the SMEs.

A key driver behind this trend is that an ever-growing share of SMEs are running their bookkeeping through cloud providers. Another one is the challenge posed by global, macroeconomic dynamics (pandemic, inflation, etc.), and the resulting need among lenders to know how SMEs’ creditworthiness is being affected in real time.

By accessing and extracting insights from fresh, well-structured datasets, credit teams can form a proper understanding of an SME business’ current situation – and, therefore, perform vastly better credit risk assessment and underwriting.

* Up-to-date invoicing, balance sheet and income statements can show key developments in any business, even newly founded ones

* Faster and smarter onboarding, credit decisions and add-on financing services

* Credit and Relationship managers can commit fully to value-add activities, instead of wasting time on data collection

* Lenders can reduce overheads and defaults while increasing customer acquisition, retention and upsell opportunities

* Lenders can meet the needs of growing businesses throughout their journey

* Real-time monitoring allows lenders to understand both individual companies and entire sectors, and take action before it’s too late

“55 percent of businesses say they are open to sharing their real-time accounting data in exchange for faster application handling and better pricing”


2. Many SMEs are eager to share their real-time financial data


The exciting news is that the SME sector is warming up to services powered by real-time data. We recently conducted a survey among SMEs in Sweden, and it shows that a majority are open to the types of connected lending experiences we outlined above.

* More than half, or 55 percent, of businesses say they are open to sharing their real-time data from accounting software in exchange for a faster lending service and/or more attractive pricing.

* Another 14 percent say they are undecided; the remaining 31 percent say no.

We expect the share of businesses willing to share their data to grow as the market evolves – and more SMEs learn about the exciting services that lenders can deliver by utilising fresh data.

“The big takeaway is that a major share of the SME market is ready for a better, smarter version of your lending business.”


3. SMEs aren’t too happy with lenders today


Considering that most lenders today make credit decisions based on fragmented information, there’s reason to believe that SME businesses are feeling some of the downsides. So we asked SME businesses how well they thought lenders understand their ongoing financial performance.

The respondents gave their lender a median score of 6 out of 10. While a sizable chunk of SMEs gave high marks to their lender, it’s clear that many struggle to access financial information sharp enough to generate fast and accurate credit decisions. 

"Two-thirds of SME businesses in Sweden have to manage paper documents when applying for financing."

Moreover, lending in 2023 is still surprisingly offline. Two-thirds of SME businesses in Sweden have to manage/provide paper documents when applying for financing, our survey shows. Almost as many have to do physical meetings or phone calls.

Yes, it’s true that lenders have been upgrading their data collection and risk assessments in recent years. But even the more recent data source additions aren’t quite cutting it. Here’s why:

* Open banking data is no silver bullet. Many lenders are working with PSD2-based transaction data to enhance their understanding of SMEs. But bank account data can only provide a partial snapshot, in addition to being difficult to categorise.

* While it’s become common among lenders to request Income Statements and Balance Sheets directly from the borrower/applicant, doing so on an ad-hoc basis has many drawbacks. Fetching this data involves manual work for the SME – and the information lenders receive tends to be of varying quality.

4. One API can provide instant access to real-time financial data


The key takeaway from our analysis is that a major share of the market is ready for a better, smarter version of your lending business. 

Lenders, both incumbents and challengers, have an important decision to make: keep making incremental improvements to existing processes, or leverage new technology to vastly improve the capacity to serve and delight SME borrowers.

The best time to act on this opportunity is now. With economic headwinds bringing uncertainty and risk aversion to the market, the lenders that have a deep understanding of their borrowers’ ongoing performance will gain a competitive edge.

Monto’s mission is to empower lenders with a comprehensive understanding of their borrowers – allowing them to spot new opportunities and stay on top of borrowers’ cash flow needs. Monto’s API and app enable any lender to securely start accessing real-time financial information with the customer’s full consent, starting today.

If you’re interested in our platform, don’t hesitate to get in touch at hello@monto.ai 

Our SME financing survey was conducted in November 2022 in collaboration with Netigate and Capcito, a direct lender and our sibling company. All 670 SME businesses included were actively using or had in recent years used external financing. 

Since the sample size in our survey was limited, the numbers should be seen as indicative. Other industry studies have found even more “bullish” trends when it comes to data sharing. A 2021 survey by EY comprising thousands of SMEs in the UK found that 8 in 10 are eager to share data with their financial provider.

SMEs are open to sharing their financial data – are lenders ready to act?


SMEs are open to sharing their real-time financial data – are lenders ready to act?

A survey by Monto shows that half of SMEs in Sweden are now securing their financing from alternative or fintech lenders. Moreover, four in ten businesses are planning to change their financing partner in the near future.


The market for SME financing is evolving fast. The digitisation of finance and rise of challenger lenders – coupled with new, pandemic-fuelled customer behaviours – have drastically redrawn the financing landscape in the past years.

But few stats are available to quantify this trend. To get a better sense of the market, we decided to go straight to the source. We asked 667 small- and medium sized businesses based in Sweden a series of questions about their behaviours and preferences with regards to financing.

Firstly, we wanted to understand the market’s general makeup:

* 50 percent of SMEs have legacy bank as a primary source of financing

* 33 percent are customers at alternative lenders, either traditional or modern

* 18 percent get their financing from fintech challengers

* 9 percent use public sources of financing

Analysis: A more diverse financing landscape


While we don’t have a historical baseline to compare with, the results indicate that banks’ market share in Sweden is being challenged by alternative and fintech lenders. The latter categories are also expanding financing to new corners of the market.

Historically, SME businesses have had a tricky relationship with banks. Whether it’s convincing a banker of growing revenues (beyond past years’ annual reports), or getting access to funds fast enough to seize investment opportunities, securing capital from a bank has for most businesses been either slow, stressful or simply impossible.

Granted, banks remain the biggest single source of capital for SMEs. They are also investing heavily to enhance their offering towards that segment. And many businesses are indeed happy with their bank relationships. Once approved as customers, they value the predictable, relatively affordable financing services that banks can offer.

“Alternative and fintech lenders targeting SME businesses are now generating billions (SEK) in annual revenue. The growth is largely driven by players that provide easier ways for SMEs to access working capital.”


There’s just two problems. One, SMEs account for 99,6% of all businesses. Two, serving smaller businesses at scale requires focus and modern capabilities. Banks are too weighed down by legacy processes to serve existing demand today, or to drive the innovation that’s required to close the funding gap tomorrow.

It’s quite logical that entrepreneurs are turning to alternative players to secure their growth capital. Michael Hansen, Monto’s co-founder, comments:

“Alternative and fintech lenders targeting SME businesses are now generating billions of SEK in annual revenue. This growth is largely driven by players that provide easy, safe ways for SMEs to access working capital. Many are specialised in invoice financing or excel at efficient application handling. We’re still in the early days of an exciting diversification of the financing market, and that will ultimately benefit a large number of businesses.”

Key drivers behind a more diverse financing market

* The number of financing providers has grown in recent years, in particular digitally–minded challengers targeting SMEs with tailored offerings.

* Accounting providers, such as Fortnox (Monto’s parent company) and Visma, are doubling down on financing offerings aimed at their installed customer base through an embedded finance model.

* Most businesses today expect services that are as seamless as consumer services. The pandemic’s “time-machine effect” on digitisation has accelerated the sophistication and availability of online lending services.

* The SME segment is driving a growing share of GDP, resulting in bigger demand – and a recognition among lenders that SMEs are a huge business opportunity.

* The growth of lending brokers has spurred increased transparency and competition in the market.

4 in 10 businesses are planning to change their lender 


Another key finding is that businesses in Sweden are proactive about choosing the right partner for their needs. A substantial 38 percent are planning to change their primary financing provider within the next two years.

18 percent say they are on the fence (“not sure”) about a change. All things considered, it’s clear that legacy banks and alternative players are going to be competing fiercely to capture this business.

“Traditional banks are facing the challenge of becoming more efficient and digitised, which would allow them to compete on an equal footing with nimble and customer experience-focused challengers. Challengers and alternative lenders, meanwhile, have more work to do in building trust and brand recognition with SME businesses, as well as getting access to cost-efficient funding,” says Michael Hansen.

Financing services used by SMEs in Sweden:


Thank you for taking the time to read about our survey results. More fresh insights will be dropping soon!

If you have any questions or want to get started with Monto’s API for financial data, please shoot us an email at hello@monto.ai

* The survey was conducted in November 2022 together with Netigate, a leading panel research provider, and Capcito, our sibling company. The respondents representing SMEs were predominantly business owners, CEOs and CFOs.

* The survey respondents were able to choose more than one primary financing partner, explaining why the tally amounts to over 100 percent. Half of the 1,337 initial respondents hadn’t used (or simply hadn’t been able to access) any external financing in the past two years, and were excluded from the survey.

We asked 700 SMEs about their financing habits (and banks have plenty to worry about)


We asked Swedish SMEs about financing

Stockholm-based Monto is determined to reshape the Nordic SME lending landscape. Through its credit intelligence platform, the company enables both banks and fintech lenders to gain a real-time understanding of their borrowers.

First published in: Nordic Fintech Magazine

For small to medium enterprises (SMEs), access to adequate funding is key to maintaining operations and investing in growth. However, lack of access to financing continues to be a major hurdle for many businesses, as lenders are reluctant to give loans to SMEs that may not be able to repay them. This dynamic has resulted in a €1,000 billion SME funding gap in Europe.

According to Monto’s CEO Leonard Schreij, the funding gap is largely driven by an information chasm. Lenders have historically lacked access to the data that’s required to make accurate credit decisions and run efficient underwriting processes. As a result, the financial incentives among business lenders have been tilted towards serving large corporations.

“The industry has lacked quality data on how SME companies are performing. When you go to the bank to get funding for your business, the credit agent requests records of your past performance – information that’s often up to 18 months old. That’s actually quite insane. It’s little wonder, then, that banks have focused on serving bigger corporations with plenty of public financial information available, leaving SMEs at a disadvantage,” says Schreij.

This is where Monto comes in. The company’s credit intelligence platform provides direct, consented access to financial data from SME companies’ accounting systems.

“Our mission is to provide lenders with the data and tools they need to understand and delight SME businesses. We use a proprietary scoring model to evaluate SME companies based on a host of factors, taking into account not just their last annual report but also how they are performing now, ” says Leonard Schreij.

Our edge is that we don’t just deliver data — we also keenly understand the SME credit scoring and underwriting process from both sides.



Covid-19 has had far-reaching consequences in the SME sector. For Monto, the pandemic underscored the importance of fresh financial data in credit decisions, especially for SMEs who were heavily affected. Because they play such a vital role in society, Monto believes that facilitating access to SME financing is one of the best ways to help society as a whole.

“While big businesses receive the lion’s share of attention, small and medium enterprises are the true job creators today. According to Swedish statistics, 80 percent of new jobs since the 1990s have been generated by SMEs,” remarks Schreij. “We are committed to empowering lenders to extend the credit entrepreneurs need to grow and create jobs – starting in the Nordics.”

Since it spun out of its sibling company, direct lender Capcito, in 2021, Monto has been working to help businesses and lenders simplify access to financing. The company’s technology is giving lenders the insights they need to make informed decisions through fresh financial information.

“Our platform uses AI-based algorithms to assess the performance of companies in real time. We have been validating this solution in Sweden through Capcito for the past six years, and are now ready to scale the underlying technology to lenders everywhere. Partnering with Monto, lenders will no longer be blindfolded when it comes to understanding how their portfolio companies are faring, a competitive advantage especially during times of volatility,” adds Schreij.

Monto’s ultimate goal is to enable the SME sector to prosper by facilitating fairer credit decisions. The key is removing information asymmetry from the underwriting process.  
“For us, fair financing means being assessed on up-to-date performance, rather than being judged based on data that doesn’t make justice to the hard work that entrepreneurs are putting in. Fresh financial information empowers lenders to onboard more business, while giving borrowers higher chances of getting the capital they need – when they need it,” remarks Schreij.

The demand for real-time borrower data is evident among Monto’s partners. One of Sweden’s largest banks, SEB, partnered with Monto to leverage this data in order to improve their lending decisions.

“Our edge is that we don’t just deliver data – we also understand the credit scoring and underwriting process from both sides, because we’ve done it ourselves. Capcito has leveraged Monto’s credit intelligence technology to lend SEK 2.5 billion to date. This gives us a unique perspective and in-depth knowledge of what it takes to successfully serve businesses. And it puts us in a strong position to help our clients achieve their goals,” says Schreij.

Tom Turula, PR and Marketing Manager of Monto, highlights that the pandemic helped accelerate expectations for financial services that are instant, online and embedded.  
“As embedded financing becomes a bigger trend, businesses are looking to access financing in the places where they spend most of their time. For example, accounting systems or e-com platforms. Open banking and the increased sophistication of financial services towards small businesses are other important trends that lenders should stay on top of,” adds Turula.

Monto (and Capcito) was recently acquired by Fortnox, the leading accounting software provider in Sweden. Besides serving the financial ecosystem through its API and credit intelligence dashboard, Monto is helping Fortnox become a one-stop shop for business services.

Both companies share the vision of delivering easy-to-use business services to small businesses – and Monto’s technology will power many of the new financing services Fortnox is launching. This means that Fortnox’s 450,000+ business customers will soon be able to get invoice-based financing with a few clicks, based on real-time accounting data.

“Fortnox is a publicly-traded company with an ambitious strategic objective of expanding from accounting services into integrated financing. We’re excited to have an owner with such a massive scale, allowing us to build and grow embedded financing services. With their vast access to data, we can make financing as easy and straightforward as possible for our customers, so they won’t need to go anywhere else,” says Turula.

“As we look to the future, we see companies from all corners of the industry striving to provide smarter and faster financing services. Our focus will be on helping lenders both big and small achieve sustainable business outcomes through improved efficiency, increased margins, and reduced portfolio risk. By doing so, we can create a much better financing landscape for everyone involved,” concludes Schreij.

Author:  
Marria Qibtia Sikandar Nagra  
 / Nordic Fintech Magazine

How Monto helps SME lenders make smarter credit decisions


We’re delighted to introduce Monto’s new Product Manager, Salim Gabro. His experience in understanding customer needs is a major asset as we launch Connect and Assess to the market. Here’s a few quickfire questions with our superstar. 🚀


Salim joined our team in early April and has hit the ground running. His very first week he got to celebrate our move to new offices at Kungsgatan, along with four other new joiners.

“I’ve only been here for a month, but honestly, it feels like much more than that,” Salim says.

”The people at Monto have been very welcoming and made me feel part of the team early on. You can feel the scale up atmosphere here and the strong focus on delivery. It’s amazing how everyone has so much to do but still takes time to welcome and introduce you to stuff. That says a lot about the culture here.”

Salim has taken on a wide range of responsibilities, from customer dialogues and user journey mapping to implementing a seamless API architecture. All of this feeds into the companywide focus of launching Connect and Assess for our fintech and bank customers – enabling them to make better decisions through easy access to high-quality financial data.

I joined Monto because the company is solving some really fundamental problems in the financing industry. 

Here’s a few quick questions and answers with our new joiner:

Everybody at Monto is both talented and friendly. It’s rare to find a place where literally everyone is good at their job! Here they definitely are. In my opinion, this is a key factor behind Monto’s success so far!

I joined Monto because the company is solving some really fundamental problems in the financing industry. The reason why many promising small and medium-sized companies struggle is not due to bad business plan or poor execution – it's lack of access to capital. By empowering financing companies to better understand and serve SME businesses, Monto can be part of transforming how these businesses secure their cash flow needs.

I’m really inspired by being part of this journey from the early days. If we can equip financial providers with the best possible credit intelligence tools, the financing industry can function  much better for everyone. And more SME businesses will be able to thrive as a result.

Tell us something about your professional background?

I have a background within consulting at a big firm for larger banks and insurance companies in various product owner and business analyst roles. I also have experience working with business development in the early startup phase, most recently at Zimply, an AI assistant company.

How are you going to apply your skills at Monto?

In my previous roles, I have done plenty of user research and conducted user workshops. I have experience from digging beneath the surface and figuring out what customers really need and expect from a service. I think this mindset will come in handy as we develop Monto’s credit intelligence offering. But I believe what I will bring foremost is to keep the product customer-focused, and meet users’ requirements through a service-minded attitude.

I have two small kids so… not a lot of spare time 😜 When I do get some alone time I like to watch sports, catch up with the old gang, play football or hang out with my wife!

Meet Salim Gabro, Monto’s new Product Manager


Meet Salim Gabro employee story monto

2022 is a year of growth and development for Monto. Our CEO Leonard Schreij talks about how we got here, and what's ahead.


Since Monto’s launch in 2021, our team has been picking up the pace. We’ve signed a handful of customers and welcomed amazing new talent. To make room for our growing team, we just moved into a brand new office space in central Stockholm.

We were also recently acquired by Fortnox – Sweden’s leading accounting software provider – along with our sibling company Capcito. Besides being a humbling milestone, the acquisition brings new resources and exciting co-operation with an owner that cares about SMEs’ success as much as we do.

In conjunction with the deal, Michael Hansen, co-founder of Monto and Capcito, has stepped in as EVP at Fortnox. Michael is in charge of everything fintech, and a big part of that is to make sure that Monto and Capcito thrive as key parts of Fortnox.

The new CEO of Monto is Leonard Schreij. Back in 2016, Leonard joined Michael Hansen as one Capcito’s founding members. Since Monto and Capcito are tightly interlinked, Leonard was the natural choice for taking Monto to the next level. Here’s his take on our past, present and future.

The blueprint for Monto’s SaaS service comes in part from Capcito. Could you walk us through how Capcito got started?


Launching Capcito in 2015, our goal was to deliver the best possible working capital experience for SMEs in Sweden. The vision was — and is still today — to give “all businesses easy access to fair financing.”

As many of you will know, SME:s have been highly underserved when it comes to access to financing. Even though they account for 40-60 percent of GDP in most economies, securing a loan or a credit line has been either too slow, expensive or impossible. As a result, cash flow shortage has unfairly become a chronic problem among young, promising, or otherwise healthy businesses.

Our founders experienced this barrier first hand, through their own businesses and investments.

Historically, traditional lenders have turned away SMEs for a simple reason: assessing their creditworthiness is hard. Much harder than, say, doing it on a publicly listed company. When it comes to SMEs, traditional lenders base their decisions mostly on outdated annual reports and static credit bureau data. Combine this with manual processes, poor unit economics, and a lack of understanding for SME needs, and you end up with a €1 trillion funding gap for SMEs in Europe.

Going into 2021, we made the strategic call to break out Monto into a separate business and make sure we could deliver on our vision faster.

With Capcito, we devised a way to base our credit assessments on up-to-date information. We were the first player to integrate real-time accounting data into our credit scoring engine. With better quality data, we could make better decisions. This unlocked benefits not just in terms of serving more companies with less risk, but also laid the foundation of a leaner and smarter business; with credit agents empowered by the right information; optimised portfolio risk through real-time monitoring; and financing products that were tailored for the SME audience.

Another key enabler was responsible data sharing. This has been Capcito and Monto’s top priority from day one. We’ve made sure that businesses know that their financial data sharing ends up benefiting them – through faster, more transparent and more affordable services.

In all of this, our technology was key. We built everything from scratch, and brought on board key accounting software partners in order to access real-time data for credit decisions. We essentially embedded automated financing inside the leading accounting systems in Sweden.

We grew the Capcito team from four to 45 people in three years. Along the way we got some great investors onboard, including SEB and Schibsted – who exited when the Fortnox acquisition happened. To date, Capcito has paid out over SEK 2.5 billion and helped thousands of Swedish companies access smooth and fair financing. And we feel like we are just getting started.

In 2019 SEB told us they were interested in licensing the Capcito technology platform. That's when we got our first SaaS client.


On top of technology, our secret sauce is a dedicated team of credit experts who guide our customers to the best possible financing setup. Our culture is super strong, we are our customers’ biggest fans. This positive, customer-centered energy has translated perfectly into Monto’s culture as well.

Our idea of a financing service aimed at SMEs required us to build a full end-to-end lending management system. In 2019, SEB told us they were interested in licensing the Capcito technology platform to automate and optimise their invoice financing products, and that's when we got our first SaaS client. The idea of Monto started to take shape.

Usually, focus is the essential ingredient of any success, so we had to think deeply about the future of our SaaS opportunity. As the pandemic struck in early 2020 we decided that the primary goal was to make sure the lending business stayed healthy.

The pandemic got most lenders to truly realise the value of having real-time financial information on their borrowers.

The pandemic became a time machine in terms of accelerating digitalisation. Interestingly, this was also the time when the lending industry truly woke up to the value of having real-time financial information on their borrowers. As the world shut down, Capcito could monitor what borrower segments were being positively or negatively impacted and could take proactive measures to adjust credit and risk exposure. Other lenders were blindfolded.

Going into 2021, we made the strategic call to break out Monto into a separate business and make sure we could deliver on our vision faster – through enabling more lenders to serve businesses, with better credit intelligence tools powered by real time data sources.

What are the plans for Monto going foward? 

We have plenty of exciting initiatives in the pipeline. We are developing our products, primarily Connect and Assess, in order to give our customers the best possible ability to access borrower ERP data and make data-driven decisions – faster and better. We look forward to having the leading credit intelligence tool on the market.

We work with both banks and fintechs, and for the coming years I expect the biggest growth to come from the fintech lending segment. We are seeing huge demand for real-time financial information among our leads and customers, especially the more tech-savvy customers who have the ability to get started in a matter of days. Once we deliver the up-to-date data, they know exactly how they can put that data to work to achieve major improvements. 

How are you going to be benefiting Fortnox, your new owner? 


That’s a super exciting chapter. We both share the vision of providing seamless business services to SMEs – and by combining our resources we make a huge impact, starting in Sweden. Monto’s technology will underpin many of the new exciting financing services that Fortnox is launching. Essentially, Fortnox 430,000+ business customers will soon have unique access to invoice-based financing at the click of a button, based on fresh accounting data.

In the first few months, I’ve been impressed by how well our respective cultures and ambitions fit together. This deal also means that we have a treasure trove of data to make sure that Monto has the most efficient SME credit models on the market. Having the backing of Fortnox is equally a great launching pad for Monto’s standalone growth operations, giving us loads of credibility on the market.

You are now busy building and scaling an organisation that shoots for fast, international growth. What are your priorities as a leader?


Number one, getting people fired up on the vision. With Monto, we want to unleash the promise of real-time data for the lenders and b2b platforms of the world. Keep it simple.

Second, getting the right people in the right positions. So what I focus on is making sure I’m surrounded by pros smarter than myself, and giving them responsibilities that align with their skills and motivation. Then it’s about ensuring they feel full trust and freedom to prioritise and execute.  

Thirdly, I’m responsible for setting and communicating the strategic direction. This is what helps Monto leaders and teams prioritise on a rolling basis. In order to balance autonomous teams with company objectives I am a believer in having crystal clear goals – both on the company and team levels. Our culture of ownership and accountability is crucial to this. 

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