Simply Asset Finance Announces Partnership with Lombard

WHY THIS MATTERS
This partnership between Simply Asset Finance and Lombard highlights a growing shift in SME lending: the combination of institutional capital with fintech-driven origination and decisioning. UK SMEs continue to face challenges accessing fast, flexible funding—particularly in uncertain economic conditions where timing is critical to growth. Traditional lending processes can be slow and heavily reliant on historical financials, limiting access for businesses with strong potential but less conventional profiles.

By pairing Lombard’s balance sheet strength with Simply’s AI-enabled, digital-first lending platform, the partnership aims to remove these friction points. Faster approvals, streamlined processing, and alternative credit assessment models can significantly improve access to finance for scale-ups. This is especially important as SMEs look to invest, expand, and respond quickly to opportunities, making speed and flexibility just as important as cost of capital.

Specialist SME lender, Simply Asset Finance, has announced a ground-breaking new partnership with Lombard, part of NatWest Group, that will combine the unique strengths of each business to significantly extend Lombard’s reach into the scale-up market and deliver the support of tech-enabled lending to businesses across the UK.

Founded in 2017 by a team of asset finance specialists, Simply Asset Finance delivers a digital path to finance for small- and medium-sized businesses across the UK – looking beyond the balance sheet to empower its clients to realise their business potential. With its proprietary end-to-end lending platform built from the ground up, Simply’s capabilities ensure market-leading efficiencies for SME borrowers, supported by its digital AI-agent, Kara. 

Approved SME customers will benefit from market-leading access to finance, enabled by Simply’s quick processing functionality and integration with AI-agent Kara, while being backed by the institutional strength of Lombard. This combination will allow businesses to overcome traditional funding delays and secure the capital needed to seize immediate growth opportunities.

Simply drives origination, leveraging its national network of local experts and vendor relationships. Through its tech-enabled approach to lending, Simply will distribute funds to applicable businesses across the UK. 

The initial phase of the partnership will provide Simply with a Lombard Wholesale facility to be deployed over three months. Further development aims at making significant contributions to the lending accessible to UK businesses through a seamless offering combining the strengths of both parties.   

Andrew Kilheeney, Managing Director, Wholesale and Specialist Businesses at Lombard, part of NatWest Group, said: “SMEs across the UK need fast, reliable access to finance to manage uncertainty and pursue growth. By partnering with Simply, we are combining Lombard’s strength with an innovative, technology‑led platform to help more businesses access the funding they need to succeed. 

“Lombard has a proven track record of working with industry specialists to create partnerships that add value to our customer proposition. A special thanks goes to the multiple teams across Simply, NatWest and Lombard that supported the delivery of this partnership.”

Ylva Oertengren, co-founder and COO, Simply Asset Finance, comments: “We are incredibly excited to be able to join forces with Lombard through this partnership. The combination of our market leading capabilities and Lombard’s track record as the largest provider of asset finance will not just super-charge our ability to help SMEs achieve their growth ambitions but also unlock new pools of business and reach new customer segments. This origination will be key to driving UK growth.”

FF NEWS TAKE
This is a clear example of how banks are evolving their SME strategies—not by building everything in-house, but by partnering with fintechs that already have the technology and distribution in place. Lombard gains access to a more agile origination engine, while Simply benefits from institutional funding capacity. It’s a mutually reinforcing model that is becoming increasingly common across the industry.

The key question will be scale and consistency. While the initial wholesale facility is relatively short-term, the long-term success of the partnership will depend on how seamlessly the two organisations integrate and whether they can maintain credit quality while accelerating lending decisions. If they can strike that balance, this model could become a blueprint for expanding SME finance across the UK.