HM Treasury backs three rental fintech firms with £1.4 million

HM Treasury has today revealed the three fintech services it’s decided to back with £1.4 million to develop their platforms and ultimately help more tenants build up their credit scores and get on to the property ladder. The cash is the final phase of an initiative called the Rent Recognition Challenge, which was in part a political reaction to a e-petition that gathered over 140,000 signatures and called for rental payments to be included in tenants’ credit histories. This e-petition was debated in parliament and soon afterwards HM Treasury announced its ‘challenge’ which has spent a total of £2 million helping fund the growth of six fintech firms. Three of these including the UK’s largest rent recognition platform CreditLadder plus Bud and Rental Step, are the finalists in the challenge. CreditLadder is believed to have received the largest cheque, for £500,000. Scrutiny Today’s announcement follows scrutiny of each firm’s presentations by a panel of leading figures from the Fintech sector including Al Lukies of Motive Partners; Charlotte Crosswell, CEO of Innovate Finance and Paul Smee, Former Director of Mortgages, UK Finance. “Our service was the first in the UK to enable tenants to have their rent recognised by a leading…