Accounting and business management software company Xero has completed its exit from lending, selling its invoice finance business Waddle to Commonwealth Bank. CBA announced that its venture capital arm x15ventures has entered into an agreement to acquire Waddle. The sale price was not disclosed. Waddle is a cloud-based lending platform offering invoice financing. It was launched in 2014 and acquired by Xero in 2020 for A$31 million upfront and earnout payments that had the potential to take the total consideration to $80 million. In March, Xero announced that it would get out of lending as part of a “streamlining” program. It wrote off more than $50 million on the investment. CBA has an existing relationship with Waddle. In 2021, it launched a small business receivables finance offering, Stream Working Capital, after working with Waddle to develop a digital platform that provides a live feed of customer data via cloud accounting software. The bank advances 40 to 80 per cent of the value of invoices, depending on the credit quality of its customers and the quality of the debtor. CBA group executive business banking, Mike Vacy-Lyle, said in a statement yesterday: “Acquiring Waddle and bringing the technology in-house will enable CBA to accelerate the growth of Stream Working Capital. “We can continue to provide the best integrated digital working capital solution in the market and support more of our customers with faster funding assessments and approvals.”