From consumer frustration to fintech innovation: How Fastcheck is reshaping motor finance pre-qualification

In an interview with Finance Connect, Rana reflects on how his background in corporate restructuring, combined with first-hand experience as a consumer, inspired the creation of Fastcheck – a real-time pre-qualification platform designed to improve transparency, proposal quality and customer outcomes for dealers, lenders and motorists alike.

When Amar Rana set out to buy a used BMW in 2018, he wasn’t expecting the experience to change the direction of his career.

At the time, Rana was working as a lawyer specialising in corporate restructuring, helping distressed businesses identify inefficiencies and improve operational performance. But his attempt to secure finance for a £50,000-£60,000 vehicle exposed what he believed was a fundamental gap in the motor finance customer journey; one that ultimately led him to found Fastcheck.

Today, following several years of development, regulatory engagement and technology investment, Fastcheck has officially launched as a real-time finance pre-qualification platform designed to improve transparency, proposal quality and customer outcomes across the motor retail sector. Built from the original CrediCar concept and refined through the FCA’s Innovation Hub and Regulatory Sandbox, the platform is now live with a growing panel of major UK motor finance lenders and dealer partners.

Solving a problem experienced first-hand

Unlike many fintech founders who come from financial services, Rana’s background was firmly rooted in law.

“My speciality was corporate restructuring, turning around distressed businesses,” he explains. “I spent years looking at businesses, identifying inefficiencies and broken processes, so I naturally developed an eye for where things could be improved.”

The inspiration for Fastcheck, however, came not from his professional career but from his own experience as a customer.

While researching finance options for a premium used car, Rana found himself unable to obtain two pieces of information he considered essential: an accurate finance quotation based on different deposit scenarios, and a genuine indication of which lenders would actually approve his application.

Instead, he encountered representative finance calculators, enquiry forms and generic eligibility tools that offered little more than broad indications of approval.

“It was frustrating because I couldn’t do two very simple things that I expected to be able to do as a consumer,” he says. “That pain point became the starting point for everything that followed.”

Rather than accepting the status quo, Rana began researching the motor finance market and the wider regulatory landscape. That research coincided with growing regulatory scrutiny of the sector, reinforcing his belief that greater transparency was needed throughout the customer journey.

Building with regulation in mind

One of the defining moments in Fastcheck’s development came when Rana approached the FCA’s Innovation Hub to discuss the concept.

The regulator encouraged the business to join its Innovation Hub before later inviting it into the FCA Regulatory Sandbox, providing Fastcheck with a controlled environment in which to develop and test the platform alongside lenders.

Looking back, Rana believes that experience proved invaluable.

Working closely with the regulator helped shape the platform’s development and gave the team an early understanding of many of the principles that would later form the basis of Consumer Duty.

“When we were discussing the product with the FCA, Consumer Duty hadn’t yet been introduced, but many of the conversations centred around those same principles,” he says. “It meant we were effectively building the platform with those expectations already in mind.”

The Regulatory Sandbox also enabled Fastcheck to validate its approach using live customer transactions.

According to Rana, the platform achieved pre-qualification acceptance rates of around 94-95% during testing, demonstrating its ability to improve proposal quality while delivering better outcomes for consumers and lenders alike.

Since completing the Sandbox, the business has rebuilt the platform to improve scalability, performance and security, while expanding its lender integrations and preparing for commercial rollout. It has also rebranded from CrediCar to Fastcheck as the business enters its next phase of growth.

Moving beyond traditional eligibility checks

While finance calculators and eligibility tools already exist across the market, Rana believes Fastcheck addresses a weakness in how many of these solutions currently operate.

Traditional finance eligibility checks are often carried out at the beginning of the buying journey, providing customers with a snapshot based on their circumstances at that moment.

However, as customers configure their vehicle purchase by changing deposits, adding part exchanges, selecting finance terms or including additional products, their eligibility can change significantly.

Fastcheck has been designed to update that pre-qualification continuously throughout the quotation process.

“The eligibility moves with the quote,” Rana explains. “Every time the customer changes something, we refresh the pre-qualification.”

If a customer alters the finance structure in a way that takes them outside a lender’s lending criteria, the platform immediately explains why and highlights what changes would bring them back within acceptable parameters.

Rana believes this creates a significantly more transparent customer experience while supporting financial inclusion by helping customers understand how their decisions affect lending outcomes rather than simply receiving a decline later in the process.

The concept has already been demonstrated through one of the FCA’s financial inclusion technology sprints, where the approach received positive feedback for helping educate consumers and improve transparency.

Building lender confidence

Developing the technology has been only one part of Fastcheck’s journey. Equally important has been earning the trust of major motor finance providers.

Rana says the company spent considerable time demonstrating the platform to lenders, refining the proposition and incorporating feedback before securing integrations.

“We had to show lenders that this wasn’t simply another version of an existing product,” he says. “We needed to demonstrate genuine innovation and show how it could improve outcomes for everyone involved.”

That collaborative approach has helped Fastcheck secure integrations with 11 lenders, while the dealer rollout is also gathering pace. The company currently has around 16 dealer groups live on the platform, with many more scheduled to come online over the coming weeks.

Feedback from the dealer community has reinforced Rana’s confidence that the platform addresses a longstanding market need.

“We’ve had dealers tell us they’ve worked in the industry for 20 or 30 years and have been waiting for a system like Fastcheck,” he says. “That’s incredibly rewarding to hear.”

Scaling the platform

With the technology now live, Fastcheck’s focus has shifted towards commercial expansion.

Over the next 12 months, the business plans to continue adding lenders, accelerate dealer adoption and establish strategic partnerships with other technology providers serving the motor finance market.

Alongside that commercial rollout, product innovation remains a priority.

Rana says the business continues to study developments in consumer finance and digital technology both within the UK and internationally, looking for ways to enhance customer experience and bring new ideas into the automotive finance sector.

“We’re always looking at how we can innovate and improve the customer journey,” he says. “There are some exciting developments in the pipeline that we’ll be announcing over the coming year.”

For a business that began with one consumer’s frustrating attempt to arrange finance for a car purchase, Fastcheck’s ambitions have grown considerably. As lenders, dealers and regulators continue to focus on transparency, customer outcomes and better quality lending, Rana believes the platform is well positioned to play an increasingly important role in the future of digital motor finance.