Ranqx, a New Zealand-based fully digital SMB loan originator, thinks it has the secret formula to fix North America’s small business lending market.

The company, founded in Auckland in 2014, is entering the North American market on the back of its partnership with Visa. Visa and Ranqx previously joined forces in the Asia-Pacific region. Essentially, Visa acts as Ranqx‘s distribution channel by introducing the fintech’s services to major financial institutions.

So what, exactly, does Ranqx do?

Ranqx offers a two-minute loan application process using APIs. Banks, credit unions, and other lenders can offer this to their SMB customers, all online. Ranqx says the system can digitally underwrite a loan in less than three minutes. It does so, it says, by leveraging real-time accounting, financial, and credit data.

Ranqx CEO Dave Lewis says this is the right tool at the right time for North America’s small business market. 

“Ranqx allows SMBs to gain greater access to finance, while also helping lenders to efficiently grow their portfolios within a tight labor market by better understanding the businesses applying for capital,” Lewis said.

“Right now, credit underwriting in the region can take many weeks to complete. We’re able to reduce that timeframe down to a couple of minutes, while also providing real-time, granular insights and more accurate underwriting decisions.”

Like Ordering an Uber

So what Ranqx is offering is actually in step with an existing trend. Fintechs are using technologies like APIs to dramatically speed up the underwriting process for small-business loans.

Back in April, for example, we wrote about Anil Stocker, CEO of a UK SMB lending platform company called MarketFinance. Stocker’s contention was that the era of one-click financing was already upon us thanks to embedded finance. This involves placing lending applications (via APIs) at the point of sale. Think how Afterplay and Klarna do this for consumer purchases.

“Businesses now are expecting a similar level of service in their business demands as they get from their consumer apps,” Stocker said back in April in an interview with PYMNTS.

“That convenience they’ve gotten used to from ordering an Uber or a flight with one or two clicks on their phones.”

And we are also seeing an industry crop up to issue fast micro loans to small businesses in emerging markets. For example, a Nigerian company called Payhippo raised a $1 million seed round last year to scale up a business promising micro-lending decisions for SMBs in three hours or less. And a host of Payhippo competitors are popping up throughout Africa. All in a race to whittle that decision time from hours to minutes.

So Ranqx may have a better mousetrap to solve for the uberization of small business lending. But it isn’t exactly the first company to recognize that SMBs need a better way to get money fast. Certainly its partnership with Visa puts it in a strong position to find scale here.