While financial inclusion becomes a regulatory imperative in Europe, the British startup Teal offers a new infrastructure for credit decisions to be based on real income data, and no longer on frozen scores or manual supporting documents. Raising 1.65 million euros In priming, the company intends to generalize real -time access to payroll data, in order to reconcile transparency, conformity and fluidity in the granting of credit.
Even today, many lenders are based on manual processes to assess the solvency of borrowers: verification of pay sheets, extraction of bank information or use of obsolete scores. These methods slow down access to credit, produce errors, and leave aside millions of people to the situation, however stable and it is to this friction that Teal wants to tackle.
“” Traditional credit scoring is faulty. It rests far too much on outdated processes, ineffective both for lenders and for borrowers “, estimated Michael HartCEO and co -founder of Teal. For him, allowing borrowers to securely share their salary data is to make the credit fairer and more accessible. In practice, Teal technology allows banks and credit platforms to integrate a modular API in a few days to instantly check the income and employment of an individual, directly at the source via payroll software.
This “infra-native” architecture, designed for banking use, fits into a broader trend: that of theInfrastructure Fintech on board. In the same way that open banking has made it possible to operate bank data to simplify customer onboarding or prevent fraud, Teal relies on theOpen Payroll To refound the solvency measurement. The company plans to quickly extend its coverage to other types of income (independent, aid, pensions) to offer a more complete vision.
“By anchoring credit decisions in verified pay data, Teal helps to redefine how credit accessibility is measured, or how loans are reimbursed and, in the end, how people access funding,” said Tim MillsManaging Partner at ACF Investors, one of the participating funds.
In Europe, few players are also clear in this segment. In the United States, the pioneers are called Argyle,, Pinwheel Or Atomicalready integrated into neobancs such as Chime or Direct Deposit systems. In France, actors like Younited,, Finfrog Or Alma are interested in alternative scoring approaches, but without direct access to primary sources.
“Teal sets the foundations for a new generation of fintech products, powered by salary data at source. This is exactly what the credit ecosystem needs today, ”says WILL ORDEPartner at Passion Capital, which leads the tour.
With the entry into force of Consumer Duty In the United Kingdom and the Open Finance sites in continental Europe, the startup is part of a structural dynamic. It aims to become a critical brick of future credit courses, by connecting to the most used payroll software, by facilitating the regulatory assessment of income and by automating, thanks to AI, monitoring of reimbursement capacity.
Teal was founded in 2024 in London by Michael Hart,, André Pinto And Luchesar Cekovthree entrepreneurs from sectors of financial data, consumer credit and software infrastructure respectively. The company has lifted 1.4 million sterling pounds (around 1.65 million euros) in a tour pre-sex led by Passionwith the participation of ACF Investors,, K fund and several business angels from notably from PLAID And Checkout. The startup plans to use these funds to strengthen its technical team, expand its partnerships with publishers of British and European pays software, and accelerate the adoption of its platform with lenders.
