Rachel Curtis

Rachel Curtis founded Inicio AI, a Coventry-based software company, and is its chief executive. Inicio AI Ltd was incorporated in April 2020. Its product guides people through income and expenditure (I&E) assessments, the affordability checks that lenders, debt collectors and enforcement agencies use to set repayment plans. In place of a long form or a phone call with an agent, customers talk to a conversational AI assistant called Budgie, which also includes a benefits calculator.

Curtis came to it after 30 years in financial services. Inicio says she held several board-level roles covering customer experience, operations and marketing, and was one of the founding team at a challenger bank that grew its deposit book to £1bn. She is also a non-executive director and Consumer Duty board champion at a regional building society. She told Startups.co.uk that Inicio’s own research shows around 40% of people behind on bills cannot complete affordability assessments on their own.

From charities to banks

According to Startups.co.uk, investors were reluctant to back the product without use cases, so Inicio started with small organizations and charities before winning larger clients. It raised £2.6m in seed funding in April 2025, as reported by Startups.co.uk, and in July 2025 Curtis won KPMG’s UK Tech Innovator competition.

The past year has brought a run of clients. BNP Paribas Personal Finance, which first worked with Inicio through its innovation lab in 2024, became a client, as did Excel Civil Enforcement and the motor finance lender Finclusion, which Inicio says uses its assessment for every loan. Tandem Bank signed in June 2026, followed by the consumer lender Evlo in July and, in August, Citizens Advice in North & West Kent and High Court Enforcement Group.

The credit industry has taken notice. Inicio won Best Use of Technology at the Credit Services Association Awards, announced in October 2025, placed 18th in BusinessCloud’s FinTech 50 in November and was named in the Startups 100 in January 2026. In June it won two Credit Strategy Credit Awards: Best Technology Provider – Applied AI and a partnership award shared with its client BPO Collections.

Why it matters to UK buyers

For banks, lenders, collectors and utilities, the I&E assessment is where a repayment plan is either fitted to a customer’s circumstances or set up to fail. Curtis argues that the data behind it is often gathered in poor conditions. “So many critical decisions in banking – lending, collections, forbearance, advice – are built on data customers provide under stress, confusion or time pressure,” she told Fintech Profile. Inicio is authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and says its tool can run alongside a firm’s existing processes and IT or on its own, which spares buyers a systems rebuild.

Curtis has turned an idea investors first passed on into software used by a bank, several lenders, enforcement firms and a debt advice charity. The client wins and awards of the past year suggest the collections industry is ready to hand the affordability conversation to AI.