Most of the ways we access credit are designed around the individual. You have a need, you find a lender, you submit an application, and a decision is made based largely on what can be understood about you from your financial history.
But that is not always how people actually move through life.
People find jobs through people they know. They learn new skills through communities. They discover opportunities through professional networks, organisations and institutions. They lean on family, friends and their communities to navigate important moments in life, from starting something new to managing unexpected expenses. They make important financial decisions with the advice, support and experience of people around them. And in many markets, they already rely on these same networks when they need financial support.
This matters because communities often know things that traditional credit systems cannot easily see. They can reveal shared patterns, relationships, behaviours and context around the opportunities people are pursuing. Yet much of this remains informal and fragmented, making it difficult to capture, learn from or scale to more of the people who need greater access to credit and are already connected to these communities, directly or indirectly.
At Lance, we are interested in what happens when technology can bring greater structure to some of these existing relationships and patterns. Not by replacing responsible lending or making community membership an automatic shortcut to credit, but by incorporating the context in which people live, work and pursue opportunities to help us improve how credit is accessed, understood and delivered.
Understanding Communities Expands Access
People are often connected to communities through the work they do, the opportunities they pursue, the institutions they belong to and the people they trust. Within these communities, relationships develop over time, and repeated interactions create a deeper understanding of the people involved.
Communities can also develop a deeper understanding of the people they serve and the opportunities they help create. They know why people have come together, what they are trying to achieve and, in some cases, the challenges that might stand in the way. Over time, they can develop shared histories, behaviours, relationships and a willingness to advocate for and support one another.
This creates a layer of context that can help us better understand how people behave, what motivates them, the opportunities they are pursuing and the circumstances that shape their financial decisions. Without this context, people can be overlooked by systems that are designed to assess them primarily as individuals, particularly in markets where traditional credit data is limited.
That understanding does not replace responsible lending, nor should belonging to a particular community automatically determine whether someone receives credit. Affordability, risk and the ability to repay will always matter.
But communities can provide a layer of context that traditional credit systems may not capture. In many markets, people already access financial support through informal networks, but these interactions are often fragmented and difficult to understand, repeat or scale.
Technology can help bring greater structure to these existing patterns, making it possible to build more relevant, reliable and scalable pathways to credit.
Building With Communities
This is why we are interested in building closer to the environments where people are already discovering opportunities and making decisions about their future.
It means working with communities and organisations that understand the people they serve, while using technology and lending infrastructure to make relevant financial products available where they can be most useful.
Our partnership with Treford is an early example of this approach. Learners have already identified a programme they want to take and made the decision to invest in their development. The community already exists, the opportunity already exists, and the intent to pursue it already exists. Through the partnership, eligible learners can access financing as part of that journey, helping reduce the financial friction between being ready to take the next step and being able to pay the full cost upfront.
This is one example of what becomes possible when credit is connected to an opportunity and the community around it, rather than treated as a completely separate transaction.
We expect there will be many more opportunities to explore this model across different communities and use cases.
What We Are Building at Lance
At Lance, we are building lending infrastructure that can support different communities, partners and opportunities.
We do not believe traditional credit systems always capture the full context around a customer, including the communities and relationships they are connected to. We also recognise that people borrow for different reasons and navigate their financial lives in different ways.
Our interest is in understanding how credit can become more relevant when it is connected to the opportunities people are already pursuing and the communities in which those opportunities exist.
This is part of the thinking behind our approach to partnerships and Community Codes. They allow us to connect people to Lance through specific communities and opportunities, while exploring how credit can become part of journeys that have already begun before someone ever thinks about applying for a loan.
We also believe communities should be able to access credit without overlooking the work they have already done to bring people together, build trust and create meaningful opportunities for their members. Through the right structures and technology, we can build on that existing foundation rather than starting from scratch.
We are still early in this work, and many of the ideas we are exploring will continue to evolve as we learn from our customers, communities and partners. What is becoming clearer is that better credit may require us to look beyond the traditional loan journey, towards the people, relationships and opportunities that shape that journey long before someone ever applies for credit.
Because better credit may not always begin with a better loan. Sometimes, it begins with a better understanding of the opportunities people are pursuing and the communities they are embedded in.
We're building the infrastructure to make credit more accessible, relevant and connected to the communities and opportunities that matter.