American politician, activist and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt once (reportedly) claimed that courtesy and efficiency occupy a symbiotic relationship in business. Simply put – efficiently fulfilling business transactions is a sign of respect and vice versa.
Similarly, technical innovation and competition have driven fintechs and commercial lenders into close, symbiotic relationships, where trust and performance, mutual efficiency and trust fuel shared success.
No longer can commercial lenders’ internal technological offerings rival the technology that fintechs offer. In particular, more traditional commercial lenders, such as banks, have been forced to drastically rethink their business models in recent years. In turn, the innovative solutions developed by fintechs (often leveraging new technologies like AI) rely on adoption by larger companies, which release the funds necessary for further development.
We’ll review both sides of the lender/fintech relationship. Starting with: Do commercial lenders (really) require the offerings of poorly-funded fintechs? And, do the sophisticated offerings fintechs offer have to rely on large commercial lenders for survival?
So far, in 2025, we’ve seen some interesting developments in the union between lenders and fintechs. For example, some notable commercial lender/fintech partnerships this year include:
Consequently, there’s growing evidence that fintechs play a prominent role in the commercial lending ecosystem. As for what fintechs can (really) contribute? They have a competitive technological offering that fills a capability gap. Let’s unpack that further.
Larger commercial lenders might issue a Request for Proposal (RFP), which encourages fintechs to review the competitiveness of their offering when constructing a proposal. This dynamic underscores the agile relationship between traditional lenders and fintechs, with the latter playing a key role in accelerating innovation and operational efficiency.
Although performance improvements are typically not specified in a Service-Level Agreement (SLA) between a lender and a fintech, both parties generally expect the technology to evolve. Partnering with a fintech can alleviate the burden on the lender to independently enhance its own technological capabilities.
Lenders might want to improve several internal performance indicators to serve their customers better and drive faster growth. Examples of these indicators may include:
Therefore, lenders must ally with fintechs that offer competitive technologies to integrate and maintain technology that helps them meet their business goals.
We’ve established that the innovative solutions developed by fintechs can benefit commercial lenders. However, what can commercial lenders specifically provide fintechs?
We’ve found that fintechs thrive on the expertise and experience of established commercial lenders, creating symbiotic relationships. But the benefits don’t stop there.
Gaining industry credibility is essential, particularly for young fintechs. Not only can partnering with a large commercial lender put their technology on the map, but it can also provide them with insights about positioning their product in the complex world of commercial lending.
In Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson, Jobs discloses his company’s approach to building integrated products: ‘Our process had to be integrated and collaborative’.
Collaboration is one of the quickest ways to build a successful product. As Barclays notes, banks can provide the ‘evolving regulation and developing the complex infrastructure required for secure payment processing at scale’. In turn, fintechs can provide speed, efficiency and cost-effectiveness in their technological offerings.
Let’s examine Evolution AI’s collaborative relationship with DF Capital.
DF Capital is a relatively young bank specialising in asset finance. They realised that a severe operational inefficiency was hindering their company's growth. In particular, the invoices for the machinery and other asset types they were financing took 20 minutes to upload to their internal system. Moreover, it also took two people to sign off on each inputted invoice.
They turned to Evolution AI’s automated data extraction technology for a more competitive and sustainable solution. We reduced the time to extract data from each invoice from 20 minutes to 30 seconds (by 95%), helping them serve their customers better.
As a fintech, our partnership with DF Capital went beyond a simple business transaction. The partnership allowed us to showcase the speed and flexibility of our technology and work with a technologically forward-thinking commercial lender.
Apart from improving the survival prospects of each party, symbiotic relationships also benefit the well-being of the overall ecosystem. External factors constantly threaten commercial lenders, such as increasing fraud, regulatory scrutiny, (increased) competition, etc.
Yet, commercial lenders serve a vital function – not only for financial services but also for the financial well-being of society. Lending promotes innovation and growth, but arguably, lenders cannot grow without innovation. That’s where the tech conceived by scrappy fintechs comes in handy.
Long live the relationship between fintechs and lenders. We hope the rest of 2025 will see the relationship develop further, driving growth across both sectors.
Ready to explore automated data extraction with an award-winning fintech? Book a demo or email our team at hello@evolution.ai. Or follow us on LinkedIn for more insights.
