Citi is partnering with retail giant Walmart to offer digital lending platform Bridge, that will connect the retailer’s 10,000 U.S.-based small business suppliers with lenders.

The $1.7 trillion bank will give suppliers access to a single loan request form that will connect them with 70 lenders that could provide loans up to $10 million, a release from Citi said.

“Bridge offers a modern and efficient way for Walmart’s U.S. suppliers to navigate the lending process and cultivate relationships with multiple lenders while helping them gain access to the capital that is essential for them to grow,” Rohit Mathur, head of Bridge built by Citi, said in the release.

The platform will provide suppliers with a streamlined loan process by giving them access to a larger number of choices along with access to capital, a Walmart spokesperson said in the release.

Penn Community Bank selects Lenders Cooperative’s LOS

Penn Community Bank implemented a loan origination system by Lenders Cooperative to assist with small business and commercial product lending.

The $2.5 billion, Levittown, Penn.-based bank chose the platform due to its flexibility, Jake Iampietro, director of retail banking at Penn Community Bank, told Bank Automation News.

“Lenders Cooperative, from a technology side, everything was very custom,” he said. “If we wanted to make changes or we wanted to change things with the product or had feedback from a customer, they were very hands-on in all parts of the implementation from a customer service standpoint.”

The loan origination system (LOS) is a cloud-based platform that uses APIs to pull customer information from banks, then each step in the loan application process is automated, Lenders Cooperative President and National Sales Director Loughlin Cleary said.

“We contract directly with all sorts of vendors from [know your customer] company Thomson Reuters for security. Once each task is completed, like KYC [know your customer], the next task will fire,” Cleary said.

Upon completion, a loan officer can review the inputted fields within the LOS platform and search prospective loan applications as needed, Cleary added.

“With the Small Business Administration offering that [Lenders Cooperative] has, we saw the vision to be able to take us further,” Iampietro said.

London Stock Exchange Group taps Mastercard for security upgrades

The London Stock Exchange Group selected Mastercard on Tuesday to leverage its open banking capabilities and to provide a secure account verification solution for its clients.

Mastercard brings capabilities within areas of customer risk screening, due diligence, identity verification and fraud prevention, according to a release from London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).

“By providing customers with consumer-permissioned open banking account verification through Mastercard, our customers can more effectively manage fraud and meet their compliance obligations, whilst providing a differentiated digital experience to their customers,” Phil Cotter, LSEG’s group head of customer and third-party risk solutions and interim head of product solutions in the data and analytics division, said in the release.

The partnership will build on LSEG’s existing fraud mitigation solution, providing businesses with multiple approaches to verify account information for more than 95% of U.S. deposit accounts, the release said.

Weavr acquires Comma, combines open and embedded banking

London-based startup Weavr purchased business-to-business open banking platform Comma Tuesday for an undisclosed amount.

The acquisition allows Weavr to offer a combined banking-as-a-service (BaaS) and open-banking platform in an embeddable payment solution for B2B applications, a release from the companies said.

“Open Banking and BaaS represent the two most innovative trends in finance right now,” Alex Mifsud, co-founder and chief executive of Weavr, said in the release.

Using the new platform, customers will be able to access payment solution applications in areas of payroll, accounts payable and additional forms of mass payments, according to the release.

LendingTree chooses Upgrade for card launch

Financial marketplace LendingTree is teaming up with neobank Upgrade to launch the LendingTree Win credit card using Upgrade’s card structure, the companies announced last week.

The card will integrate with the LendingTree app, allowing customers to track their rewards and offer credit monitoring and savings recommendations based on real-time data, a company release said.

“This is the next step in a multi-year evolution,” Doug Lebda, founder and chief executive at LendingTree, said in the release. “The Win Card takes the guesswork out of rewards, without any annual fees, while encouraging financial progress.”