Slope has announced the launch of SlopeScore, a new cash flow underwriting system designed specifically for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). This system utilizes a patent-pending categorization engine with a large language model (LLM) at its core to transform raw transaction data into structured, credit-grade signals.
While consumer underwriting has experienced significant innovation with cash flow scores from various vendors, SMBs have remained an underserved segment. Despite their crucial role in the economy and the availability of banking data, SMBs lack a widely adopted, FICO-equivalent credit score. The complexity of SMB cash flows means that models designed for consumers are often inadequate for this sector.
SlopeScore addresses this gap by processing raw transaction data into credit-grade features, including categories, counterparties, intermediaries, modalities, and locations, to inform credit decisions. The system aims to establish a new standard in SMB lending, outperforming existing metrics like SBFE and FICO, expanding access for thin-file businesses, and identifying risks that other systems might miss.
Lawrence Lin Murata, Cofounder and CEO of Slope, stated, “Most underwriting efforts focus on consumers because it’s simpler. We took the opposite path. By starting with SMBs, we built SlopeScore to capture more edge cases, generalize better, and even correct mistakes humans miss.”
For lenders, SlopeScore is designed to facilitate increased approvals, support portfolio growth, and streamline the onboarding process. These enhancements are intended to bolster institutions’ competitiveness in an environment where speed and access are key drivers of customer choice.
In a recent pilot conducted with a leading U.
S. bank, SlopeScore demonstrated its capabilities by unlocking nearly $1 billion in new credit originations from existing data. The system also delivered a 13% improvement over FICO in predicting next-18-month delinquency and achieved 99% transaction categorization accuracy across critical fields such as income, debt, and rent, in some cases surpassing human accuracy. SlopeScore is currently being piloted by major fintechs and financial institutions globally and is now broadly available for lenders seeking to integrate cash flow underwriting into their commercial credit decisioning.
