Specialist SME lender multifi has launched a tool intended to help commercial finance brokers identify unsuitable funding applications earlier, alongside analysis estimating that unsuccessful cases can consume a substantial proportion of brokers’ working time.
BrokerScope examines publicly available company information at Companies House and compares relevant details against multifi’s own lending criteria. The system aims to give intermediaries an earlier indication of whether a prospective borrower meets the lender’s requirements before they spend time preparing an application.
The launch accompanies Broker Your Time Back, an analysis published by multifi on 15 October 2026, which estimates that brokers may spend between 40 and 65 hours a month on applications that never result in completed funding.
That equates to approximately one and a half to two working days each week under the company’s model. Crucially, the calculation is based on assumptions about broker activity, rather than time independently measured across a representative sample of commercial finance intermediaries.
The model combines published market information with assumptions about how brokers assess lenders, prepare cases and handle applications that subsequently fall away.
Its published input is that intermediaries consider an average of six lenders per transaction. The model then assumes that checking a lender’s appetite and eligibility criteria takes between 20 and 30 minutes, while preparing an application for submission requires approximately six to ten hours.
It further assumes that between 60% and 70% of actively worked cases do not complete, using illustrative monthly workloads of approximately eight to twelve active cases.
These assumptions are central to the resulting estimate. Different completion rates, application requirements or working practices could produce substantially different results. The figure should be understood as an assessment of potential wasted capacity, not an established average across the brokerage industry.
Commercial finance brokers play an important role in helping smaller companies obtain funding. Businesses seeking working capital, equipment finance or support for expansion may need to compare products with different eligibility conditions, security requirements, repayment structures and pricing arrangements.
The diversity of lenders can improve the range of financing options available to borrowers, but it can also increase the work required to establish whether a particular application is suitable.
A company may qualify for an asset finance facility while failing to satisfy the conditions attached to unsecured working capital lending. Its trading history, legal structure, existing obligations and financial circumstances can influence which products are available.
BrokerScope is designed to address part of this preliminary assessment. Rather than attempting to evaluate the entire commercial finance market, it compares company information against multifi’s specific lending requirements.
Where an applicant appears unsuitable, the system identifies the reason and suggests categories of finance that might better fit the company’s circumstances, such as asset finance or invoice finance.
The tool can assess an individual company or a list of businesses, and brokers can download a one-page company summary for discussion with clients. A live chat function provides additional support concerning the information displayed.
Another feature allows intermediaries to monitor changes to a company’s public record. For example, a notification can be generated when a recently established business reaches a year of trading, potentially satisfying a minimum history requirement that previously prevented an application.
The availability of this information does not replace full credit assessment. Companies House records provide useful details about incorporation, filings and other corporate matters, but do not necessarily establish a business’s current cash position, affordability or complete financial circumstances.
multifi states that BrokerScope provides information rather than advice and does not make lending decisions. An indication that a company meets preliminary criteria is not a loan approval or a commitment to provide funding.
The lender has also introduced a mechanism intended to test its original productivity assumptions. After brokers use the tool, they can be asked whether the relevant case subsequently progressed, allowing multifi to compare actual experiences with the estimates set out in its report.
That distinction between modelled and observed results is important when evaluating the product’s effectiveness. An early screening system may reduce time spent on clearly unsuitable applications, but the scale of any benefit will depend on how accurately it identifies mismatches and how brokers incorporate its findings into their processes.
There is a potential cost to incorrectly excluding viable applications. A business that falls outside one lender’s criteria may still be able to secure appropriate finance elsewhere, while another may require a more detailed assessment before its suitability becomes clear.
For brokers, the commercial benefit would come from reducing avoidable work without undermining their ability to identify funding opportunities for clients. Measuring that benefit would require evidence about completed applications, unsuccessful submissions and the amount of time actually saved.
The company cites wider market research indicating that intermediaries are responsible for substantial volumes of SME funding and that many borrowers seek finance beyond the largest banks. Those figures provide context for the industry’s complexity, but they are separate from multifi’s modelling of broker working time.
BrokerScope represents an attempt to use existing public company information to simplify the preliminary stages of commercial lending. Its operational value will become clearer as brokers use the platform and the company gathers evidence of whether early screening improves completion rates or reduces unnecessary preparation.
Until that evidence is available, the reported 40 to 65 hours of lost time should remain explicitly attributed to multifi’s model based on assumptions rather than presented as an independently verified measure of broker productivity.
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