BMO Business Xpress Surpasses $1 Billion in Credit Authorizations, Saving Canadian Businesses Thousands of Hours

• Leading onboarding platform has helped more than 20,000 small businesses across the country

TORONTO, Dec. 22, 2020 /CNW/ - BMO's leading small business onboarding platform, BMO Business Xpress, has extended over $1 billion in credit authorizations to small businesses across the country, saving them time and helping them access capital more quickly. The onboarding platform has significantly reduced the time it takes to apply for a loan, from several days to roughly 20 minutes.

Since launching in October 2018, BMO Business Xpress has helped more than 20,000 small business customers. As well, the number of approved loans has jumped over 350 per cent in slightly over a year.

"Small businesses across this country have never needed us – all of us – more than they do right now," said Mike Bonner, Head, Canadian Business Banking, BMO Bank of Montreal. "We need to ensure that these critical businesses have the support they need to grow. With BMO Business Xpress, we have introduced a solution that is tailored to Canadian small businesses and the response from clients continues to be incredible. We will continue to find ways to help all small business owners access capital and support them as they grow."

To help Canadian businesses, BMO Business Xpress offers the following:

• Data analytics technology that takes into account the specific needs, complexities and risks of a small business enterprise – significantly reducing the approval period for small business loans.
• Best-in-class automatic adjudication strategies, designed to be completed by one person in branch, from initial customer conversations to document generation and signing in roughly 20 minutes.
• Specialized support for specific industries, with agriculture customers able to secure a loan for up to $1,000,000 at their farm or home via BMO Business Xpress in under a day.

As Canada's bank for business, BMO is committed to supporting small businesses. The bank recently introduced a new, dedicated business banking team to help ensure that small and emerging businesses in Canada have the support and resources needed for long-term growth. BMO also committed to doubling small business lending in Canada to $10 billion by 2025. As well, the bank is increasing its support of women entrepreneurs. As part of that, BMO has introduced Women Client Strategy teams to provide holistic support and has earmarked $3 billion in capital for women entrepreneurs. BMO also pledged $100,000 in grants to women-owned businesses to help them better position themselves coming out of the pandemic.

To learn more about how BMO is supporting small businesses, please visit: https://www.bmo.com/main/business/.

About BMO Financial Group
Serving customers for 200 years and counting, BMO is a highly diversified financial services provider - the 8th largest bank, by assets, in North America. With total assets of $949 billion as of October 31, 2020, and a team of diverse and highly engaged employees, BMO provides a broad range of personal and commercial banking, wealth management and investment banking products and services to more than 12 million customers and conducts business through three operating groups: Personal and Commercial Banking, BMO Wealth Management and BMO Capital Markets.

SOURCE BMO Financial Group

Media Contact: James DeCosimo, Toronto, [email protected], [phone]