eBay partners with Spanish bank Santander to offer loans to more than 200,000 SMBs on its platform in UK via Asto, the bank's business bookkeeping app
Santander and eBay have agreed a lending partnership for small businesses as the two groups attempt to combat competition from tech giants and newer digital rivals.
Context & Ripple Effects
Santander is extending a playbook it has since doubled down on: months after this deal it led Ebury's £350M raise to take a 50.1% controlling stake in the SME foreign-exchange provider, making embedded small-business finance a core bank strategy rather than a side bet. For eBay, lending is a repeat move — it already signed a seller-financing partnership with Square Capital alongside its Apple Pay rollout in 2018.
The competitive framing in the announcement matters: both parties say they are responding to pressure from tech giants and newer digital rivals. In the UK specifically, challenger Tide raised $14M to court SMBs with a mobile-first service and an iwoca-powered loan program — exactly the customer segment this partnership targets through Asto.
First-order effects
- More than 200,000 UK SMB sellers on eBay gain a lending channel inside Asto, Santander's bookkeeping app, meaning credit decisions can be priced off transaction data flowing through the marketplace.
- eBay deepens seller lock-in beyond payments: with Square Capital covering US seller financing, the Santander deal extends the same retention lever to its UK base.
Second-order effects
- UK digital challengers like Tide and specialist lenders such as Selina Finance face a competitor that pairs a big bank's balance sheet with marketplace data — pushing them toward their own distribution partnerships rather than direct acquisition of borrowers.
- For Santander, the deal de-risks SME underwriting by anchoring it in eBay sales history, a model it reinforced by taking majority control of Ebury for cross-border FX attached to the same client base.
Third-order effects
- If marketplace-anchored lending proves out, the structural shift is banks renting distribution from platforms instead of building branches or apps to win SMBs directly — flipping who owns the customer relationship in small-business banking.
- Regulators and incumbent lenders will increasingly confront underwriting based on platform transaction data, raising questions about data access and whether non-bank platforms become gatekeepers to credit.
The trend: Banks are embedding SME lending into marketplace and software platforms — Santander via Asto and Ebury, eBay via Square Capital before it — as both sides fight digital-native challengers for small-business customers.