Open Banking and Smart Data make more business activity visible, but many SMEs remain unread by lenders because assessment tools focus on historical signals. Gifftid uses forward operational signals — contracted pipeline, recurring revenue, retention, delivery record — to help institutions identify firms that are fundable under modern business models.
Across 55,000 UK firms Gifftid assessed, about 40% read well on commercial signals, but only ~12.5% are judged capital-ready by traditional criteria.
Gifftid’s R³ and R⁴ products supply lenders, funders and procurement teams with forward operational signals while leaving decision authority with the institution.
# Summary
# The gap in plain terms
Lenders continue to use models designed for businesses whose risk profiles are visible in past financial records. Newer business models generate value in ways those records understate. Gifftid measured 55,000 UK firms and found a striking pattern: roughly four in ten score strongly on commercial signals, yet only about one in eight meet conventional capital-ready thresholds. Nearly a quarter fall between these extremes — neither clearly fundable nor clearly not — effectively deferred rather than declined.
# What Gifftid does differently
Gifftid extracts and structures forward operational signals that matter for assessing near-term capacity to absorb capital. The firm highlights these concrete indicators:
Its products, named R³ and R⁴, package these signals for use by lenders, funders, and procurement teams. Importantly, Gifftid positions itself as an augmenting layer: it supplies readable data to existing decision processes but does not make lending decisions, recommend investments, introduce borrowers, or themselves lend.
# How this fits with Open Banking and Smart Data
Open Banking and Smart Data build the infrastructure that makes business activity visible. Gifftid targets the next layer: analytical instruments that read forward-looking flows rather than only historical snapshots. That means taking data that is now accessible and interpreting it in ways aligned with modern business cashflows and contractual patterns.
# Practical implications for institutions
Lenders and procurement teams that keep decision authority can use R³ and R⁴ to: identify businesses that conventional scoring overlooks, move more firms out of a deferred status, and better match capital to firms' actual near-term capacity. Because Gifftid integrates into existing processes rather than replacing them, institutions can pilot these signals without wholesale model changes.
# Where to see and hear more
Gifftid planned a panel at Open Banking Expo titled "Visible, not legible: What Open Finance still can't tell a lender." The company said it would be on Stand B5 in the Barclays Innovation Zone and would discuss how the products work in practice.
# Bottom line
The core problem is legibility: data availability has improved, but analysis remains anchored to past-focused instruments. Gifftid offers a practical route to convert new data into operationally relevant signals so institutions can find and fund SMEs that, under modern metrics, are ready for capital.
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