UK Fintech Launches World’s First SME Data Asset Exchange to Bridge £22bn Funding Gap

New marketplace turns fragmented SME financial health data into liquid insights.

BIRMINGHAM , UNITED KINGDOM, September 23, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In an era when small and medium-sized enterprises are hailed as the backbone of the British economy yet chronically under-served by finance, a quiet revolution has begun. Today GFA Exchange announces the launch of the world’s first SME Data Asset Exchange – a marketplace designed to take the static, fragmented data about the financial health of Britain’s SMEs and turn it into something liquid, tradeable and, crucially, useful.

The ambition is straightforward but profound. By treating verified SME financial health data as an asset class in its own right, GFA Exchange intends to narrow the £22 billion UK SME funding gap (British Business Bank, 2025), arming lenders with intelligence to reduce portfolio risk and opening up new growth markets. The initiative speaks not only to fintech innovation but to a broader question: how do we rebuild confidence and efficiency in the flow of capital to the nation’s entrepreneurs?

For decades the data underpinning SME lending has been static, siloed and incomplete. Each bank, each alternative lender, each credit bureau holds fragments of the picture, but the overall view is clouded by information asymmetry. That asymmetry drives up costs and restricts access to capital for precisely those firms which need it most.

GFA Exchange is attempting to change the model entirely. Instead of hoarding information within individual institutions, its platform allows verified SME financial health insights to be benchmarked, monitored and traded in real time. This is not a tweak to credit scoring; it is the creation of an entirely new market for data – one that promises to shift how risk itself is priced.

The timing is striking. With non-bank lenders now accounting for 60% of UK SME lending (Bank of England, 2024), pressure on traditional risk assessment models is intensifying. Fragmented data and outdated methods create blind spots. Those blind spots lead to poor risk pricing, missed opportunities and systemic inefficiencies. If capital markets abhor uncertainty, then the case for a more transparent, tradable data layer is obvious.

“For decades, SME data has been trapped in silos. We’ve made it liquid and tradeable,” says Joel Blake OBE, Founder and CEO of GFA Exchange. “This is not simply about technology. It’s about giving lenders a new intelligence layer that was previously impossible to access – strengthening portfolios, reducing defaults and unlocking capital for the SMEs who need it most.”

At the heart of GFA Exchange’s proposition lie two interconnected offerings:
For Lenders – The SME Data Asset Exchange
A secure, API-first marketplace enabling financial institutions to:
* Trade anonymised SME financial health insights rather than rely on partial reports
* Reduce portfolio risk and improve risk-adjusted returns
* Access markets previously deemed too risky
* Benchmark and monitor SME financial health across portfolios in real time

For SMEs – Geoffrey, “The Financial Butler”
A free, AI-powered financial health assistant designed to help SMEs:
* Track their financial health in a single dashboard
* Benchmark performance against peers by sector, size and location
* Receive tailored growth insights and proactive alerts via mobile, desktop or tablet
* Build a verified, shareable financial profile to improve attractiveness to lenders and investors
This two-sided structure creates a self-reinforcing ecosystem: as more lenders trade and more SMEs participate, the quality of data improves and the cost of capital can, in theory, fall.

Pilot Programme Opens 1 October 2025
To ground this vision in practice, GFA Exchange is inviting lenders and SMEs to join an exclusive three-month pilot ahead of the full launch. Early participants will gain priority onboarding, shape product development and play a role in designing what could become a new standard for SME risk management and data asset exchanges.

The pilot opens on 1 October 2025.
Register for early access: https://gfamonorepo.vercel.app/auth/signup

Alfie Brown
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