365 Finance – fit for a king

When South African-born Andrew Raphaely launched his lending business, 365 Finance, he would never have dreamed that 12 years later, King Charles would personally award him and his company for enterprise and innovation.

Last Tuesday, 9 July, King Charles bestowed on Raphaely’s company the King’s Award for Enterprise at a ceremony held at Windsor Castle.

“We didn’t expect it at all,” said Raphaely, pointing out that the award was for his company and not him personally. “It’s something we’re proud of, and we have some South Africans on our board. It was exciting to be put on such a profound stage to show what South Africans can do.”

Among the guests at the reception was Jonathan Reynolds, the new secretary of state for business and trade, and while pointing to the business people including Raphaely, King Charles told Reynolds, “They represent the best of the British.”

Raphaely, however, qualified as a chartered accountant in 1998 in Johannesburg, and went to the United Kingdom in 1999 after completing his articles. He started 365 Finance, a business that lends money to SMEs (small and medium businesses) in 2012. In the years since, 365 Finance has won several awards including Credit Awards SME Lender of the Year – which it has held since 2022; Leadership Awards: Business Leader of the Year in 2024; and Employer of the Year for the Women in Credit Awards in 2023.

The company is celebrating 10 years since it granted its first loan as it took the first two years of the business to get its systems right. Said Raphaely, “Over the past 10 years of 365 Finance, we’ve collected a lot of data over which loans have performed better, which have performed worse, what makes a loan good, and what makes a loan not so good.

“Now we have artificial intelligence and machine learning programmes on how to underwrite customers. That’s the innovation that has won us the award.

“We take company culture seriously with our 65 employees in our two offices in the United Kingdom,” said Raphaely. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, I reached out to our staff and asked them to write a page about what the business culture meant to them. We published a book to give to new and prospective employees, and we update the book each year.”

“It’s important for us that our customers can easily afford what we’re lending to them, and aren’t put under pressure,” he said.

“For example, if we lend £30 000 [R704 823] to a restaurant and it is going to pay back £35 000, 365 Finance makes sure that no matter how long it takes to repay, that restaurant will only ever owe us the amount of £35 000. So every day, when customers give a pound to the restaurant, they get 90p and we get 10p until the £35 000 is paid back. When they’re trading more heavily, we’ll get paid back faster. When they’re trading slower, we get paid back slower. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we didn’t collect from many of our restaurants but we did collect from our convenience stores. The collections are very much based on performance,” Raphaely said.

They initially heard they were to receive the award in mid-April, and much jubilation followed.

“My mother was born in London and was always a keen royalist. Sadly, she passed away on 6 May, so didn’t get to see me collecting the award, but I learned that we had won the award before then so she knew about it before she passed away and she was very proud,” Raphaely said.

Raphaely described King Charles as personable, and said he had asked relevant questions to all those at Windsor Castle. “He has this defining presence when he walks into the room. You know that the king has arrived.

“Ahead of the award, one of my friends told me that there’s a special blessing to say when you meet a monarch, so I was blessed to perform this mitzvah of saying this blessing as well,” he said.

In winning the award, 365 Finance can put the king’s emblem next to its emblem in all communications that the company makes for the next five years including its letterhead, and can put up the king’s emblem in its offices.

“This will raise the profile of our company and attract interest in investment in the future,” Raphaely said.