As someone who is currently looking to rent this is amazing! And a cool use of open banking!
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Interesting, as a serial renter, weāve found that fronting the deposit whilst waiting for the previous one to be returned can be a big stumbling block. Interesting use of Open Banking
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Hey, weāre super excited to be able to talk about it. Happy to answer any questions.
Simon
btw @simonb, you should probably remove my Monzo staff badge 
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@anon94554600 Hey!
Itās a great concept, and I love the use of open banking with it. Iāve just had to get 6 months of bank statements for the estate agents for our next move in January, pain in the backside, I wish theyād use Open Banking too.
I just signed up to the waiting/mailing list.
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Our mission is to make this kind of pain go away. We want to be the renters champion. Landlords have Estate agents, but renters always seem to be out on their own.
If we succeed, youāll turn up at the estate agent with your Fronted ID and the estate agent will know that your deposit, rent guarentee, identity, and all that is sorted. And when you move out, you can just drop the keys and go and weāll make sure you get your deposit back (minus a fixed fee).
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Happy to give more info if people are interested. 
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Ha, all done. Glad to see you on here still and really excited about what yāall are doing 
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Sounds like a dream! Will be brilliant if you can pull it off, Good Luck!
Would love to maybe be a beta tester for you in January if youāre ready by then and you need one. Let me know if you need me 
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@anon94554600 Love what you guys are building! As someone who is looking to deposit his first rental and feels the frustration this is great.
I am curious do you think open banking use cases like this will help demystify the credit checking/score system (even in some cases make it fairer)? When I first moved to the UK I had no bloody clue how it was calculated and regularly got declined as I had āno credit historyā.
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Will this process be as easy with houses rented directly from landlords, not rented through estate agents?
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Absolutely. Thereās a fascinating story to be told about how current lending is based on a bunch of assertions by customers, credit reference agencies and underwriters, and they all connect through an unreliable primary key.. namely the customers Name and Date of Birth.
At Fronted, using Open Banking, weāll assess whether you can afford the loan by looking at your account transaction history, weāll lend to the person who controls that account, and weāll collect the repayments from that account. This is safer, cleaner and provably more correct.
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Yes! (although not initially)ā¦ Weāre hoping that once Confirmation of Payee arrives weāll be able to check that the owner of the property matches the account thats receiving the loan.
Barring that, weāll look to work with deposit protection schemes so we can send the money directly to them to be picked up by the landlord (or just left there for the term of the tennancy).
For our Alpha launch weāll be targeting people renting through FCA regulated Estate Agents.
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Also small thing but the no fees for early payment is awesome! 
Hi @anon94554600! How does this differ from FlatFair?
Hey great question. With Flatfair, you pay a āmembership feeā. For a Ā£2000/month rental, youāll pay Ā£554. You donāt get any of this money back when you leave, itās just gone. And if the landlord wants to deduct costs for repairs etc, it doesnāt come out of this Ā£554, it costs you more.
With Fronted, the money we lend you goes into the Deposit Protection Scheme. If youāve paid off your Fronted loan, then when you leave, you get your whole deposit back (minus any landlord deductions for cleaning etc). The only cost to you is the interest on the loan, and weāre working to make that as cheap as possible (itāll definitely be less than Ā£554).
We want people to use Fronted to borrow a deposit that they get to keep when they move out. We aim to give people Liquidity for Mobility, not add extra fees to renters lives.
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Hey we are aiming for a March launch - so if you can hang on, great! Or, if you know someone in need of us then, feel free to refer them our way.
If there are no fees how are you planning to make money?
Do you have plans around the considerations by the government for renters to have one deposit that travels with them eliminating the need for new deposits when they move?
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Sounds like a cool idea 
best of luck with everything, really like the idea of open banking as you get a clearer and more accurate view of a potential customer / customer much smoother process 
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Eventually we want to turn rent into a subscription-like service where we act as your Guarantor, help you setup your bills and broadband (and earn commission), and provide a fixed-fee checkout so you can drop the keys and go when you move out and leave scrubbing the oven to us 
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We love that both the LIBDEMs and the CONS recognise the rent deposit issue in their manifesto, and are honestly really excited by the prospect of running a service that helps who ever wins deliver this manifesto promise.
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Seems like a really interesting proposition. After a few years of house sharing, I moved into an unfurnished flat. This was pre-tenancy fees ban, so the deposit was around Ā£1000. I couldnāt afford that alongside all the furniture I had to buy, so opted for the Ā£180 ānil depositā fee. This means I didnāt need to pay a deposit, but equally would have to pay for any deposit deductions once Iād moved out (into somewhere more expensive!).
In hindsight I shouldāve looked around for a loan or used a lower interest credit card as I effectively paid 18% interest. Anything less than that and Fronted looks a great idea.
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