verifi partners with Catfoss Finance to accelerate SME lending

Catfoss Finance has partnered with verifi to accelerate SME lending by adopting the company’s virtual asset inspection platform, helping streamline underwriting and strengthen portfolio risk management while maintaining its relationship-led approach to lending.

The partnership reflects a growing trend among established lenders embracing digital transformation to improve operational efficiency without sacrificing the personal service that underpins their business models. By integrating verifi’s digital inspection technology into its processes, Catfoss aims to reduce delays in asset verification and speed up funding access for SME customers.

With more than 20 years’ experience in the UK asset finance sector, Catfoss Finance has built its reputation on what it describes as “common-sense lending” – manually underwriting deals through experienced credit professionals rather than relying solely on automated systems. The lender provides funding across a broad range of hard assets, including construction equipment, agricultural machinery, yellow plant and heavy commercial vehicles.

Traditionally, verifying the existence and condition of financed assets has relied on physical inspections, often creating delays in time-sensitive transactions. Through the partnership, Catfoss will now use verifi’s self-certifi inspection platform, enabling brokers, dealers and SME customers to complete secure asset inspections remotely using a mobile device.

The digital process is designed to reduce friction in the lending journey by allowing inspections to be completed in minutes, freeing Catfoss’s underwriting team to focus on deal structuring and customer service.

Alongside improving efficiency, the partnership also aims to strengthen asset security and fraud prevention. Catfoss will utilise spuuf, verifi’s proprietary AI-powered image validation technology, which verifies the authenticity of inspection images at the point of capture in near real-time.

The system acts as a “silent hand” during inspections, alerting lenders to potentially manipulated or fraudulent images while maintaining a seamless user experience. According to verifi, this enables lenders to combine the speed of digital processes with the assurance required for high-value asset finance transactions.

Jonathan Garnett, co-founder of verifi, said the partnership demonstrates how technology can support, rather than replace, relationship-led underwriting.

“Catfoss Finance’s commitment to human underwriting decisions and relationship-led lending is exactly why verifi is such a logical fit,” he said. “We aren’t here to automate the credit decision; we are here to remove the friction in that process by delivering high-quality, consistent asset data directly to their underwriters in minutes. By doing so, we help Catfoss make their common-sense lending decisions faster and more securely than ever before.”

Herbie Tabor, Head of Credit at Catfoss Finance, said the integration would help the business continue delivering fast decisions and a customer-focused service.

“At Catfoss, our success is built on providing our customers with fast commercial decisions and a friendly, personal service,” he said. “Partnering with verifi allows us to streamline our asset verification processes, reducing the time taken to payout, whilst ensuring we continue to proactively manage risk across our portfolio.

“Integrating this platform supports our goal of offering a simple, frictionless service that enables our SME clients to access the funding they need, faster, without compromising our common-sense approach to lending.”