Customer Success Story
Merchant West Group goes live with Solifi ABL
The leading privately owned South African financial institution upgraded its software to align with its strategy of innovation.
Background
Merchant West Group is a leading privately-owned South African financial institution that provides alternative business funding. Established in 1998 as a subsidiary within a listed asset management firm, in 2002 it finalized a buy-out and rebranded to Merchant West. In 2008, Merchant West Working Capital Solutions was established. With a 25-year track record, it offers diversified services, including asset finance and working capital.
As a long-standing Solifi customer, Merchant West Group, through Merchant West Working Capital Solutions, sought to upgrade its current on-premise hosted platform for its asset-based lending business.
Challenge
Over the next three years, Merchant West Group intends to significantly scale its asset-based lending business in the South African region. The group had been using a legacy on-premise platform that could no longer receive the latest functionality, making it obsolete and unsuitable to support Merchant West Group’s long-term growth plans.
Merchant West Group required a proven solution with predictable costs to fulfill industry needs and manage risk whilst also offering its clients real-time account administration, access, and portfolio insights.
Solution
The decision to upgrade followed a thorough review and selection process that prioritized excellent customer service, security, and the ability to support the scaling of the business following a period of sustained growth.
Following this process, Merchant West Group chose to upgrade to Solifi ABL on the Open Finance Platform. With proven collateral management expertise with hundreds of global clients, Solifi’s asset-based lending software was the perfect fit. One of the key benefits motivating Merchant West Group to upgrade was the cloud-based nature of Solifi’s software-as-a-service, which offers better flexibility, security, and automation to maximize productivity and operations within the business.
Merchant West Group had a long and successful relationship with Solifi for over a decade, making it a natural choice to upgrade. The project, which received the green light in April 2023, was delivered on time and within budget by July 2023.
Solifi’s platform allows users to access data in near-real time, with daily management and trend reporting and a borrower portal that offers customers 24/7 self-service access to their credit line and finance information. Solifi Open Finance Platform also meets AICPA requirements for SOC 1 and SOC 2, meaning Merchant West Group can be assured of data security and safety whilst the business continues to expand.
Results
Merchant West Group was able to migrate from its older legacy system without any interruption to services, resulting in favorable client response to the new software.
Solifi ABL presents a solution to Merchant West Group that is instrumental in the delivery of their growth plans. The platform offers the benefit of a predictable cost structure, which removes hardware investment and enables Merchant West Group’s smooth scalability for the growth of their business. It also features automated quarterly releases, which maximize user value of the newest features and integrations while minimizing internal IT effort.
The initial client response was fantastic, with the business benefiting from the borrower portal and the ability to custom-brand it. The operations team were also impressed by the system, finding it intuitive and user-friendly.
