3-year-old British fintech Abound becomes profitable and is doubling the size of its team

British credit technology firm Abound has announced that just 3 years after launching it has achieved profitability and is looking to double the size of its team in London from 65 to 130 this year.

Founded in 2020 by senior credit experts Gerald Chappell (ex-McKinsey Partner) and Michelle He (ex-EY Director), Abound is also now one of the UK’s fastest-growing loan providers, having issued over £300m in loans since launching 3 years ago.

Abound’s AI technology scans customers’ Open Banking Data to accurately understand each applicant’s unique financial situation and what they can afford to repay each month. This is in contrast to traditional credit checks, which are based on statistical averages and may be right on average but are wrong in almost every individual case.

“We originally built Abound to prove that our Render technology could work. We’re delighted to therefore not only have proved that but also to have become a profitable company in our own right, as well as major employer in the London fintech scene,” says Gerald Chappell, CEO and co-founder of Abound.

The AI-powered technology means Abound sees 75% fewer defaults than the industry standard and are often able to offer customers the cheapest rate they can find.

It is estimated that over 15 million people in the UK currently struggle to borrow for unexpected costs, with many with poor credit scores having to accept unacceptably high or unrealistic interest rates.

As well as the firm’s B2C offering, the company’s proprietary AI technology – known as Render – is sold as a B2B product to other businesses that are either seeking to improve their own credit decisioning or start lending for the first time.

Last year Abound raised more than £500 million in funding to turbocharge its growth in the UK market. Abound is on track to have £1 billion on its balance sheet by 2025.

“The profitability and growth of Abound is a real testament to both technology and to people. It shows the value of the Render platform as well as the hard work of the Abound team over the last 3 years to make us a force to be reckoned with,” says Michelle He, COO and co-founder of Abound.

A brief history

Abound was founded in 2020 by a team of credit experts with decades of experience. It uses Open Banking and AI to provide borrowers with fair loans based on what they can afford to repay.

Chappell, previously Global Head of Digital Lending at McKinsey, and He, who was a Director at EY working with banks and financial institutions on lending and credit analytics, lead the team.

Abound is currently able to offer loans between £1,000 and £20,000 repayable for up 8 years with a 24.8% APR (representative).

• Read more under:
• Announcements
• LendTech