Exciting FinTech Ecosystem Helps Fastcheck Speed Ahead

The professional services sector is experiencing an unprecedented boom in the West Midlands. Amar Rana, CEO of Fastcheck, explains what drew his business home to Birmingham.

‘I’m from Birmingham, born and bred. When we first started Fastcheck, or CrediCar as it was at the time, we wanted to stay in the West Midlands, but couldn’t find the resources and support we needed. Our target customers are banks. We were knocking on doors, but couldn’t seem to make any headway, so we moved to Canary Wharf and things started moving. That’s when COVID hit.’

Like so many businesses, Fastcheck retreated to ride out the pandemic closer to home. It was as restrictions started to lift that Rana noticed a change in the West Midlands’ financial services ecosystem.

‘All of a sudden, a lot of initiatives appeared that offered support to new entrants – organisations like SuperTech and Tech West Midlands. When we started looking into it, we found a great network of mentors and corporate businesses who really wanted to help early-stage companies. All the opportunities that we moved to London for in 2018 were suddenly now on our doorstep. Really, it’s thanks to this ecosystem that the West Midlands is such a great place to start a financial services or tech business.’

Fastcheck provides an instant quote and eligibility check to customers interested in purchasing a retail item on finance. Originally, the company focused solely on car purchases, but it now has plans to expand into other vertical channels.

‘It was a real pain point for me personally. I love cars, but every time I wanted to buy one there was no way to find out what my finance options were without submitting my bank details, my employer’s details, and doing a hard credit search, all of which had an impact on my credit rating. Fastcheck was born out of my desire to smooth out this wrinkle for the consumer. Now, customers can get a quote tailored to their situation just by using their face recognition or touch ID. Of course, the technology isn’t only relevant to car purchases; it can apply to anything a consumer wants to buy online using finance.’

Fastcheck was a great idea born out of real-world experience, but that didn’t mean Rana found it easy to bring his solution to market.

‘My background is in law. I didn’t have knowledge of finance or tech. I just saw a problem and a gap in the market which I wanted to fill. Our experience shows how much you can achieve with the right partners and the right support. I credit SuperTech – a kind of West Midlands-based consulting organisation – with a lot of our success. They put us in touch with a number of banking partners who they were working with on other projects and that made all the difference to us. We were able to get through the door of big banks, speak to decision makers, get access to data, understand how the operation would work and what changes we needed to make. Having this insight really accelerated what we were doing. Working with banks isn’t fast. It takes time, but I think working with SuperTech shaved a whole year off our development process, and a year in FinTech is a very long time.’

Now that Fastcheck has established itself in the heart of Birmingham, Rana sees lots of advantages to being based outside the South East.

‘Not all of our clients are in London. We’re only an hour from the capital, but we’re also only an hour from most cities in the north, and our transport links are excellent, in terms of customers visiting us from further afield. The market’s younger here; it’s growing and dynamic. All the advantages of London – banks, partners, investors – we’re seeing more and more of that. Our ecosystem is getting richer all the time and, as an early participant, we can direct the nature and shape of that growth.’

As a more established player within West Midlands’ FinTech sector, what advice would Rana give to new entrants?

‘I’d tell anyone interested in creating a business in this area to keep alert to opportunities. Don’t just think about how you can shoehorn new technology into an existing product; look for real-world problems that need a solution – and don’t give up. It’s tough, but there’s help out there, so make sure you tap into all the resources and support available because it really does make a difference.

‘The other thing I’d say about developing a tech product is make sure you get it to a minimum viable state and test it as quickly as you can. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t think big when you’re looking for partners. When I had my first prototype built, I reached out to the former CEO of Volkswagen Financial Services. I had a meeting with Graham Wheeler, and ended up recruiting him as my first co-director. So, be brave. Go out there and do what you have to do. You’ll be surprised at the big corporate partners involved in growing the tech scene within the West Midlands.’