Mollie, one of the fastest growing financial services providers in Europe, has announced the UK launch of Mollie Capital – a fast and flexible way for SME merchants to access funding. Mollie Capital gives UK retailers the opportunity to bypass traditional lenders and access up to £250,000 to help drive growth. In Europe, where the service launched in late 2022, SMEs have used Mollie Capital to take advantage of deals to acquire cut-price inventory and boost marketing spend during peak shopping periods.
In the UK, SME merchants are underserved by traditional lenders. They have to produce reams of financial data, are put through lengthy application processes, and forced to wait weeks for a decision and then the funds that follow.
Unlike these lenders, once a merchant has been processing payments with Mollie for 90 days, they are immediately eligible to apply for funding. The application process takes as little as five minutes, and once a decision is made the funds are transferred within 24 hours. This enables merchants to take rapid action to changes in business circumstances and capitalise on growth opportunities. Mollie Capital features a fixed one-time fee with a repayment plan based on a percentage of your daily sales.
To date Mollie Capital, which is offered in conjunction with YouLend, has provided loans exceeding €50 million to over 5,000 SMEs in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Applications for funding are highest during peak shopping periods, such as Black Friday and the festive period. The success of Mollie Capital in Europe underscores the latent demand from SMEs for fast financing and wider money management services. This includes new businesses, companies requiring smaller funding amounts, and those that prefer revenue-based financing.
Sebastian Bakker, general director of Dutch ecommerce brand CookingLife, an early customer of Mollie Capital, explained: “We used Mollie Capital while renovating our new head office and warehouse. It helped us pre-finance more activities during construction to invest more in our new warehouse. This will benefit us later during the year-end rush.”
“Mollie Capital is our first financial service to launch in the UK – the first of many designed to eliminate financial bureaucracy for SMEs,” said Mia Hunter, managing director of Mollie UK. “For too long, small and mid-size UK merchants have been neglected by incumbent payment services providers, lenders and banks. They just don’t invest in the simplicity and flexibility SMEs need to manage their finances. Mollie Capital fills a critical gap in the UK market. In Europe, we have customers repeatedly using, and paying back, this new source of funding to drive impressive levels of sustainable growth.”
Mollie initially launched in the UK in early 2021, licenced via the Temporary Permissions Regime for EU-based financial services firms. Mollie was granted a Payment Institution licence from the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority in June 2023.
