NatWest works with Validis to automate financial data collection within invoice finance

Source: Tom Siddiqui, head of financial services, Validis

Validis is pleased to announce a new partnership with NatWest, one of the UK’s largest commercial banks, to automate borrower financial data collection within its Invoice Finance business.

NatWest’s Invoice Finance team will now access structured accounting data directly from borrowers’ accounting systems during new business onboarding. The manual document collection step is replaced with automated, borrower-permissioned data extraction.

Validis connects to leading accounting platforms including QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent, Xero, Microsoft Dynamics, and NetSuite. Standardised financial data is delivered directly into NatWest’s workflows.

“We’re pleased that, through our partnership with Validis, we’re making it quicker and easier for customers to get started with an Invoice Finance facility. Secure access to structured accounting data reduces manual effort and gives us more consistent information, helping us speed up our support for customers,” said Paul Edwards, managing director of Lombard and specialist businesses at NatWest.

The friction at the start of every lending relationship

The most time-consuming part of secured lending has little to do with credit judgment.

It is the process of collecting reliable financial data from a borrower. Before a lender can assess collateral, verify receivables, or make a credit decision, someone has to gather the financial information. That typically means document requests, manual exports, and spreadsheets that arrive inconsistently formatted and often incomplete.

In Invoice Finance, this challenge is particularly visible. Lenders need to verify that the receivables backing a facility are real, current, and accurately represented. The onboarding process depends on financial data that is often collected manually, creating delays and introducing inconsistency before the lending relationship has even properly begun.

A better approach to borrower financial data

There is a more direct path. When borrower financial data comes from the accounting system itself, rather than from manually compiled documents, lenders receive cleaner, more consistent information. The collection step becomes automated. The analysis can begin sooner.

This is the approach Validis enables. Validis connects directly to borrowers’ accounting platforms, standardises the financial data, and delivers structured datasets into lenders’ workflows. Borrowers authorise access once. The data flows directly, without manual preparation.

Part of a growing network

NatWest joins a growing group of major lenders, that use Validis to automate financial data extraction and standardisation across lending verticals.

Each new lender relationship strengthens the platform for borrowers and intermediaries who increasingly encounter Validis as the standard method for sharing financial data with their lenders.

Further reading: Financial data platform Validis secures backing from Citi, Barclays