The basic idea
In ordinary corporate lending, a bank looks at a company's profits and lends against its overall ability to pay. In asset-based finance, the funder looks at a defined pool of assets: how those loans or receivables perform, how much they are worth and how quickly they pay back. The assets are usually held in a separate company so the funder can rely on them even if the company that made them runs into trouble.
The term is used in different ways. Some use it for any lending against assets, including real estate, equipment and inventory; in private credit it often means lending against pools of financial assets such as consumer and small-business loans. This site uses it in the second, narrower sense.
Main forms for fintech lenders
- Warehouse facilities: revolving credit lines secured on a growing pool of new loans.
- Forward flow: an investor commits to buy new loans as they are made.
- Securitisation: loans are pooled and refinanced through notes sold to investors, publicly or privately.
- Other asset-backed lines: facilities secured on specific assets, such as invoices or equipment, that do not fit the labels above.
How these fit together is explained in how fintech lenders fund their loans, and the structure guide covers the building blocks: tranches, advance rates and triggers.
Who provides it
Banks have long provided senior asset-backed lines. Private credit funds, insurers and asset managers also provide asset-based finance, often taking the higher-risk layers or buying loans outright. Public securitisations are sold to a wider set of institutional investors. Which funders appear in announced European fintech deals is shown in the funder finder.
Why it matters to lenders
For a lender, the cost and availability of asset-based finance largely decide how fast it can grow and how much it earns on each loan. That is why new facilities, upsizes and first securitisations matter to the lender's investors, funders and competitors, and why this site tracks them.
What ABF Watch tracks
The tracker records publicly announced warehouse lines, forward flows, securitisations and other credit facilities raised by European fintech and specialty lenders, with the borrower, funders, size as announced, asset class, date and sources. It currently holds 124 deals from 70 borrowers, announced since 6 Jan 2025:
- Public securitisation: 39
- Credit facility: 39
- Forward flow: 16
- Private securitisation: 12
- Revolving credit facility: 8
- Warehouse: 6
- Asset-backed facility: 3
- Term loan: 1
The most common asset classes are SME loans (31); Consumer loans (28); Property bridging (9); Buy now, pay later (9). How the data is collected is on the methodology page.