Oversized loan applications penalize small businesses - Now they can estimate their borrowing capacity with Krea's AI-service
Skriven av: Sara Falkengaard
Senaste uppdatering: 19 december 2025
Many business owners find it challenging to secure financing. Data from Krea's financing service shows that 70% of all creditworthy companies have their applications approved. The main reason applications are rejected is that businesses apply for loan amounts that are either too small or too large. Companies that apply for excessively large amounts from the outset receive offers with interest rates that are on average 18% higher. For this reason, Krea has further developed its loan indicator, which helps businesses apply for the right amount based on artificial intelligence (AI).
According to Krea's Financing report 2023, only 70% of creditworthy companies receive at least one offer on their business loan application. The approval rate for creditworthy companies remains at a very low level - comparable to what was seen during the COVID-19 period. The latest data from Q3 2023 shows that approval rates have stopped declining, but the outlook remains uncertain. Unique to the business lending market is the fact that lenders often reject applications because the requested amount does not align with the bank's own assessment of what constitutes a reasonable loan size for that specific business.
If business owners instead apply for an amount that aligns with the bank's assessment, this leads to better terms. Krea's analysis also shows that the loan amount sought is by far the most important factor in predicting whether a loan application will be approved.
We saw that many business owners find it difficult to choose the right loan amount. This, in turn, reduced their chances of securing financing.
Now that interest rates have begun to level off, many are looking to restart their activities. We therefore want to offer small business owners a tool that helps them create the strongest possible loan applications.
Carsten Leth, CCO at Krea
Adapts to interest rates and economic conditions
The loan indicator model is based on machine learning (a form of artificial intelligence). Krea automatically collects publicly available data on every company that submits an application and has already worked with more than 30 000 businesses, resulting in a high level of accuracy. Unlike earlier models, the current technology is more self-learning and considers factors such as the prevailing interest rate environment and approval rates within specific industries. Krea is unique in offering this solution, and the technology has also been reviewed by AI Sweden, where Krea is part of the Swedish AI startup landscape.
Sweden has a high level of transparency when it comes to company data - for example all annual financial statements are publicly available. So far, this transparency has primarily helped lenders with credit assessments, but we also want to increase the opportunities for small businesses to capitalize on their own data.
Carsten Leth, CCO at Krea
Krea's loan indicator can be used free of charge via Krea's website. Businesses can test their borrowing capacity for amounts of up to 3 million SEK. For larger companies, the model does not generate a result, in such cases Krea instead refers users to book a free advisory meeting.
» Test: Se borrowing capacity in 1 minute - without a UC credit check
Krea primarily helps small businesses gain easy access to the best financing terms for business loans. There are an increasing number of tailored offers for small businesses, and through our financing service, companies gain access to 30+ lenders with just one application.
» More about: Business loans small enterprises