Newport-based fashion wholesale platform Brand Lab Fashion has signed an exclusive partnership with leading fintech lender iwoca.

The partnership will enable Brand Lab’s registered retailers and independent boutiques, which number more than 12,000, to access instant credit at competitive rates, all seamlessly integrated into the wholesale platform.

Set up in 2012 as a digital finance solution, iwoca is now one of the UK’s fastest B2B lenders.

It uses technology to eliminate the cost and complexity associated with traditional business finance.

The partnership will enable Brand Lab’s independent retail members to gain instant lending decisions with no upfront fees or long-term commitments.

Dan O’Connell, co-founder of Brandlab said: "Brandlab was set up to provide efficiencies in the way brands and retailers do business, via our agile technology. Our partnership with iwoca will enhance our offering and will be truly disruptive in the way it democratises the costs of credit in the independent wholesale market.

"By bypassing cumbersome credit facilities like factoring, this initiative will improve the margins of wholesale brands but also provide quick and flexible lines of credit to independent boutiques with the whole process completed swiftly online via the Brand Lab platform."

Sharif Mohamed, head of affiliates at iwoca, said: "Iwoca has been funding retailers across the UK and Europe for years now and pride ourselves on making access to finance for these businesses as fair, fast and seamless as possible.

"Brandlab struck us as having exactly the same values in the way it is innovating the buying process and making it simpler for these same businesses to get the stock they need, when they need it. A partnership made perfect sense to us and we look forward to working with Brandlab to ensure their users businesses continue to flourish."

The credit facilities will be available through the Brand Lab Fashion platform from mid November 2018.