Funding Circle, a London-based lending platform for small businesses, has jumped on the Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) bandwagon with its own offering called FlexiPay.

FlexiPay enables businesses to spread any UK invoice or supplier payment over three months, with the initial payment made upfront on their behalf.

The feature has launched in beta to a selection of Funding Circle’s existing customers with interest-free repayments, and a 3% flat fee on each transaction.

New customers can join the waitlist and be next to access FlexiPay as it is rolled out more widely in the coming months.

The firm said that this new feature provides businesses with greater flexibility to negotiate with suppliers, deal with unexpected payments, buy equipment, and more.

Underpinned by powerful machine learning risk models and instant decision lending technology, FlexiPay offers a new and unique solution whereby businesses can apply within minutes and approved customers can access between £2,000 and £30,000 almost immediately.

Last year, Funding Circle accelerated the roll-out of its Instant Decision Lending, which now serves 50% of term loan customers.

This functionality has reportedly reduced the application time to an average of six minutes and wait for a decision to just nine seconds.

FlexiPay is the latest addition to Funding Circle’s suite of products, opening up the booming UK small business payments market currently valued at more than £1 trillion.

Funding Circle is also launching a waitlist for a business charge card to help small businesses manage their spending.

Lisa Jacobs, Europe Managing Director of Funding Circle said,

“We are really excited to be using our market-leading technology to launch FlexiPay, which is designed to support small businesses to manage and control their cash flow.

 

The new product enables businesses to buy now and pay later on any business spend in a way that suits them.”

Featured image: Lisa Jacobs, Europe Managing Director of Funding Circle