The venture arm of German lender Commerzbank has backed a London-based financial technology start-up that lends to small businesses, as the online lending sector attracts increasing interest from large financial institutions.

CommerzVentures has participated in a $20 million investment round in iwoca - which is short for "instant working capital "- a young fintech company that uses big data technology to collect and analyse thousands of data points to provide short-term loans to small and medium enterprises.