Proactive e-commerce platforms don’t rest on their laurels. Having worked hard to partner with merchants, they work even harder to retain them. It’s this enterprising approach that allows them to focus on retention rates rather than churn rates. But with so much competition, it’s a challenge for them to remain in sight of their customers’ wandering eyes. 

Auxiliary services can build a mutually beneficial online experience that differentiates e-commerce platforms and retains merchant customers – provided they add value. Agile lending services have the potential to cement the platform/merchant relationship by providing access to vital funds for these small businesses. But, offering lending services for the sake of it is not enough; they must appeal to the merchants’ need for a seamless, streamlined, and tailored experience – without exposing the platform to fraud, credit risk, and compliance challenges. 

For this reason, dynamic e-commerce platforms are choosing to integrate an instant 4-click funding journey that has convenience, transparency, and personalisation at its core into their ecosystem – unlocking time-critical funds for merchants safely. 

Understanding 4-click funding

Powered by AI, 4-click funding eliminates friction from the lending process, unlocking funds for merchants quickly and cost-effectively. This helps to democratise finance for these small businesses by removing barriers – namely clunky and unaccommodating legacy lenders – that have traditionally prevented them from accessing vital funding.  

So, how exactly does 4-click funding enable e-commerce platforms to offer financing to customers in a matter of minutes? 

1. See the offer: The lending functionality is seamlessly embedded into the platforms’ existing customer journey using sophisticated – and customisable – APIs, enabling an automated pre-approved offer to be made. 
2. Customise the offer: Real-time user experience optimisation customises the lending proposition depending on the platform’s offering and the customers’ requirements.  
3. Confirm details: The applicant’s details are processed instantly, and an auto-approval decision is made followed by an auto-approved offer. 
4. Sign the contract: The applicant accepts the offer immediately, gaining access to the funds almost instantly. 

This ability to expedite the fund process provides merchants with the point of need access to the capital they crave, enhancing their cashflow management and increasing their purchasing power and inventory management; while the e-commerce platform builds brand loyalty and increases revenue through elevated user experience – a ripple effect that benefits both parties and has safety at its core.  

Risk management and credit decisioning

Inserting lending services that lean on outdated legacy infrastructures exposes e-commerce platforms to credit risk. This reliance on historic credit scores that overlook applicants’ future financial position prohibits them from flagging high-risk customers that might default on their repayment obligations.  

By augmenting the lending application and assessment processes with advanced algorithms, 4-click funding expedites credit-approval times and creates transparent credit decisioning models by analysing broad and diverse data sets in real time. This not only prevents applicants whose finances might deteriorate from being approved; it ensures creditworthy applicants aren’t rejected. For example, risks associated with instant financing are mitigated through robust automated underwriting practices that leverage cash flow and transaction data to drive instant – and informed – financial assessments. 

Security and fraud prevention

Automated fraud detection and prevention tools conduct real-time analysis of vast swathes of transactional data, allowing platforms to identify nuanced trends that can be used to detect fraud in real time. Once fraud is identified, advanced algorithms can automatically reject transactions or flag and rate them for further investigation.  

AI’s ability to process large volumes of data expeditiously also reinforces instant funding from a compliance perspective. With clunky manual processes consigned to the past, real-time performance data drives prompt preventive action if processes become non-compliant.  

Integration and user experience

Instant funding is a cornerstone of the embedded lending model: the seamless integration of lending services by non-banks into their infrastructure. Innovative e-commerce platforms partner with a third-party provider like Liberis to leverage embedded lending. This tech-led specialist helps them to seamlessly integrate agile lending options into their platform by harnessing customisable APIs – significantly reducing the time to market. 

With the instant funding application and approval process integrated into the platform’s user interface the customer journey is optimised for a smooth and intuitive 4-click experience: see the offer, customise the offer, confirm details, sign the contract.  

Success stories

Klarna – a leading global payments and shopping service – has partnered with Liberis to embed instant funding into their online experience as a value-added service for merchant customers. Their Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) offering relies on the delivery of short-term financing to customers, allowing them to make purchases and pay for them at a future date. By integrating 4-click funding into their platform, they empower merchants to access finance without friction. 

Future implications and innovations

One of 4-click funding’s main strengths is its dependence on AI. The definition of dynamic, AI is constantly learning and adjusting, providing e-commerce and embedded lending platforms with the agility needed to evolve by creating user experiences that are increasingly intuitive, natural, and engaging. 

Any concerns around AI algorithm transparency are being allayed by the emerging field of explainable AI (XAI), which augments AI’s innate ability to process large volumes of data expeditiously with clarity. XAI has the power to dispel questions about the validity of the outcomes AI produces by explaining the characteristics and rationale of its output. The in-depth insights offered by this descriptive tool will drive increased trust in and adoption of 4-click funding. 

Conclusion 

4-click funding ticks all the value-added service boxes for e-commerce platforms merchant customers: convenience, transparency, and personalisation. It’s this triumvirate of factors – or lack of – that have traditionally shackled these small businesses from a lending perspective.  

By integrating 4-click funding e-commerce platforms can provide merchants with the expedited lending service they deserve – safely and securely. This instant access to tailored funds isn’t just a nice change to the cumbersome and convoluted traditional lending model; it can mean the difference between surviving and ceasing to exist.  

With the anxiety of being rejected by legacy lenders assuaged and time-critical funds accessed, e-commerce platforms’ value-added service will achieve what it set out to: attract and retain customers.