Merchant Lending
Unlock Lending Revenue Hidden in Merchant TransactionsMerchants are a high value but often overlooked segment of your business portfolio. They generate millions in card transactions each year — and they’re actively seeking capital to grow. Yet banks traditionally don’t leverage the data flowing through these transactions to assess creditworthiness. That means missed opportunities — both for lending growth and merchant loyalty.
RDC.AI helps you unlock this hidden value. With our platform, you can turn settlement data into fast, flexible funding offers that keep your merchants growing — and keep them with you.
Features overview
Grow lending portfolios with confidence
Unlock new revenue through untapped merchant data while controlling risk through sales-based repayment and monitoring.
Accelerate time-to-revenue
Convert merchant applications to funded loans in minutes, not weeks.
Expand your addressable merchant market
Confidently serve creditworthy merchant businesses that don’t fit traditional lending criteria.
Reduce operational overhead
Automate assessment and monitoring while maintaining your risk standards.
Differentiate your offering
Provide the customer experience that wins and retains valuable merchant relationships.
Optimise portfolio performance
Leverage merchant transaction data for superior risk assessment and pricing.
Turn Merchant Transactions into Lending Growth
You already hold the key to data-driven, safer lending – your merchants’ settlement data. With RDC.AI’s platform, that data becomes a powerful lens into each business’s health, growth, and repayment capacity.
Instead of relying on backward-looking financials, our platform transforms sales patterns into revenue signals, unlocking new merchant segments while reducing risk.
This approach not only expands your lending portfolio – it also earns lasting merchant loyalty by meeting their funding needs with speed, fairness, and clarity.
The offering is capital efficient and highly sticky – merchants respond strongly to the simple loan structure and transparent fees. In fact, over 70% of small merchants return to borrow again.
This isn’t about taking more risk – it’s about leveraging the rich transaction data your merchants already generate for reliable and accurate decision-making.
RDC.AI provides the technology platform that enables you to deliver fast, fair, and flexible funding solutions that match how merchant businesses operate.
How our AI Platform Works for your Merchant Lending
Merchant Transaction Intelligence
Our AI engine analyses your merchant customers’ transaction data to understand sales patterns, seasonal fluctuations, and growth trends. This creates a comprehensive picture of merchant business health that goes beyond traditional financial statements, giving you deeper insights into your existing merchant customer base.
Merchant-Specific Risk Assessment
Advanced machine learning models assess repayment capacity by identifying patterns in daily sales volumes, transaction behaviour, and revenue consistency. This enables you to make accurate risk evaluations without requiring collateral or extensive documentation from your merchant customers.
Sales-Based Repayment Matching
The platform calculates optimal repayment rates (typically 10-30% of daily card sales) that align with each merchant’s cash flow patterns. Repayments automatically adjust with sales performance – higher during busy periods, lower during slower times – reducing default risk and improving merchant satisfaction.
Automated Decision Making
AI-powered assessment enables you to deliver lending decisions within minutes, not weeks. The platform supports transparent pricing with a single upfront fee structure, eliminating ongoing interest calculations and providing clarity for both you and your customers.
Real-world Success:
BNZ Merchant Flexi Loan
One example of merchant lending in action is Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), which recognised the opportunity to offer capital directly to merchants using transaction data they already had access to.
In 2025, BNZ launched their Merchant Flexi Loan powered by RDC.AI’s platform, transforming how they serve their merchant customer base.
The solution enables BNZ to offer:
- Rapid approvals in as little as 3 minutes for qualified merchants
Unsecured funding up to $50,000 without requiring financial statements or business plans - Flexible repayments that adjust with daily card sales – “I pay as I get paid.”
- Transparent pricing with a single upfront fee and no ongoing interest charges
The partnership demonstrates how traditional banks can successfully deploy AI-powered lending to better serve their merchant customers while maintaining risk management standards and regulatory compliance.
“Our customers tell us they need to move fast to stay competitive and grow, whether that’s securing new equipment, expanding their premises, or taking advantage of seasonal demand. By streamlining the application process and using data we already have, we can help them seize those opportunities without delay. It’s about bringing together speed, simplicity and flexibility to make it easier to move quickly when opportunity knocks. We’re proud to be the first New Zealand bank to offer a lending solution like this.”
Karna Luke
BNZ Executive for Customer Products & Services
Technology Foundation
Advanced AI and Machine Learning
Our platform employs sophisticated algorithms trained on extensive merchant transaction datasets. Pattern recognition capabilities identify business strength indicators that traditional assessment methods miss, enabling you to confidently serve previously overlooked market segments.
Leverage Alternative Data
Integration with payment systems and transaction data sources enables continuous analysis of business performance. This provides up-to-date insights for both initial lending decisions and ongoing portfolio monitoring.
Explainable AI Framework
Every lending decision includes clear reasoning and risk factors, ensuring transparency for your stakeholders and regulatory compliance.
Scalable Architecture
Cloud-native platform designed to handle high-volume transaction processing and rapid scaling as your lending portfolios grow.
Transforming How You Serve Your Merchant Customers
Your merchants fuel your daily transaction revenue, but when it comes to business lending, they’re often left behind. Offering them tailored, fast-access capital isn’t just good service; it drives loyalty, grows lending volumes, and increases the lifetime value of each merchant relationship.
While traditional approaches evaluate yesterday’s performance, these merchant businesses need funding for tomorrow’s opportunities – and you can be the bank that delivers it.
Supporting Merchants with Working Capital
Traditional Bank Lending
- Historical financial statements only
- Fixed monthly payments regardless of sales
- Weeks or months for approval decisions
- Extensive paperwork and documentation
- Collateral and personal guarantees required
- One-size-fits-all credit scoring
AI-Powered Merchant Lending
- Real-time merchant transaction analysis
- Payments flex with daily merchant revenue
- Approvals in minutes
- Digital-first, no paperwork
- Unsecured, based on merchant cashflow strength
- AI-powered individual merchant assessment.
Why Merchants Love Merchant Loans
Traditional Merchant Lending Reality:
“The bank wanted three years of audited financials, a business plan, and collateral worth more than the loan. By the time we got through their process, the equipment we needed had doubled in price.”
Your New Merchant Lending Capability:
“I applied Tuesday morning during my coffee break. Approved by lunch the next day. Finally, a lending solution that understands how my merchant business actually works.”
Delivering Product Innovation
12 months of merchant transaction data reveals seasonal patterns and growth trends.
AI-powered assessment identifies merchant business strength beyond traditional metrics.
Predictive modelling forecasts repayment capacity based on actual sales performance.
Dynamic evaluation adapts to each merchant’s unique sales rhythm.
Get in touch
Discover how RDC.AI can help you grow your merchant lending portfolio and build stronger merchant networks – all while keeping risk in check.