This blog post was written by Cătălina Plinschi, COO at Fagura. In partnership with the Mastercard Strive EU program, Fagura is enhancing small business access to finance in Romania through an AI-powered credit scoring widget.
For many small business owners, the dream of growing their company often runs into challenges with accessing finance. In Romania alone, there are more than 400,000 micro-enterprises, and the vast majority are in need of funding. Traditional lending processes can mean long waits, extensive paperwork, and complex credit checks, making it difficult for entrepreneurs to get the working capital they need exactly when they need it.
This reality that many entrepreneurs face is also a huge missed opportunity within the Romanian economy. To put it in perspective, the credit-to-GDP ratio in Romania is only 28%, compared to 75% in the Eurozone. This gap suggests significant untapped potential to support small business growth through greater access to finance. Additionally, about 18% of small companies are unable to meet their investment needs because they lack fast, data-driven tools.
For the last seven years, Fagura has been on a mission to democratize investment and access to finance by combining technology with a community spirit. Our regulated peer-to-peer lending platform connects retail and institutional investors with creditworthy borrowers, using technology to streamline the lending process and enhance financial inclusion. Since our launch, Fagura has intermediated over €21 million in Moldova and Romania, helping individuals and entrepreneurs access capital through AI-driven credit scoring. Thanks to the support of the Mastercard Strive EU program, Fagura has spent the last year building a solution to enhance access to finance for entrepreneurs in Romania: an AI-powered widget that brings financing directly to the platforms where business happens.
Instead of asking busy entrepreneurs to navigate lengthy applications, Fagura developed an AI-powered credit eligibility widget, which can be embedded directly into the software that small businesses use every day, like accounting, invoicing, or e-commerce platforms.
Caption: Fagura’s AI-powered credit eligibility widget can be embedded into platforms that small businesses already use.
The technology is simple yet efficient; it provides a financing decision in less than 3 seconds. In most cases, a user only needs to enter their CUI (Company Registration Number) and Owner’s Name. The widget then queries public data to analyze the company’s creditworthiness and provides an instant estimate of the credit limit, averaging €7,500. We make sure the widget looks and feels like a natural part of our partner’s platform, making the experience more frictionless for the user.
Once an estimate is provided, the Fagura team contacts the user to confirm their interest and guide them through the final loan request. Fagura’s platform then facilitates funding from a pool of more than 2,500 investors. This entire process takes only a few hours from the initial loan request to the funds arriving in the entrepreneur’s account, because the widget functions as a digital pre-approval.
Fagura’s credit-scoring widget is moving the needle in Romania
Over the course of the project, the impact has been significant: we’ve integrated 12 partner platforms and mobilized €500,000 in capital for small businesses that would otherwise be unable to access it. We are thrilled with our progress, and the project also brought us the Ziarul Financiar award for the AI in Fintech of the year.
Caption: Fagura’s project with the Mastercard Strive EU program mobilised €500,000 in capital for small businesses through its AI-powered eligibility widget.
We have also learned a lot about designing embedded finance solutions for small businesses. For one, trust is everything. We learned that small businesses are much more likely to apply for funding when the widget appears within a “trusted environment”, like their existing accounting dashboard. We also found that the speed of a credit decision is also a major factor. Entrepreneurs value a clear “yes” or “no” in seconds over a lower interest rate that would take weeks to confirm.
The end of this project is just the beginning. With 12 active partner integrations and more in discussion, our goal is to grant access to finance to 300 small businesses within the next six months. Fagura has already successfully expanded this tool into the Republic of Moldova and is analyzing how to serve the diaspora community across the entire EU. Through the combination of AI and embedded finance, we aren’t just lending money; we are saving entrepreneurs time, reducing friction, and helping the real economy grow.