In this video, Mervyn Jespers, founder and CEO of Immotecto, answers the most frequently asked questions about the platform and explains why he created it.
A frustration many people know
Mervyn Jespers has moved house a good ten times. Each time, the same problem: how do you prove your rental reliability without a permanent contract, without payslips, without carefully kept rent receipts?
He has been self-employed throughout his career. He paid his rent. But he had no way of proving it. This gap is what Immotecto fills.
This case is far from exceptional. Self-employed workers, freelancers, students, first-time tenants and people in international mobility all come up against the same logic: the traditional rental application is built around the permanent employment contract. Those who fall outside this framework start at a disadvantage, even if they are good payers.
What Immotecto is, and what it is not
Before going any further, three points need to be made clear.
Immotecto is not a banking institution. We never analyse the tenant's financial situation.
Immotecto is not a payment guarantee. It is a selection tool, not insurance.
Immotecto is not a bad payer register. There is no blacklist, no registration without consent.
What we do, however, is enable tenants to prove their past rent payments, in a verifiable way, to private landlords and agencies.
Three audiences, one direction
The platform is aimed at three types of users.
- The tenant: they obtain an argument that no one else can provide, proof of their actual payments, independent of their type of employment contract.
- The private landlord: they analyse applications faster and compare candidates on a common basis, that of payment reliability, rather than on a single criterion such as the nature of the contract.
- The estate agency: they handle a large volume of applications and save time at every stage of the selection process.
The four products on the platform
The TectoDossier
This is the classic rental application file, compiled once. The tenant enters their identity, professional situation, housing history, references, guarantors if they have any. Nothing is mandatory: each section is at the tenant's discretion. Documents are encrypted, and the tenant controls what they share. Creating the TectoDossier involves no charges.
The TectoScore
This is the centrepiece of the system. The TectoScore measures rental reliability on a scale of 0 to 100, from a single source: rent payments actually made.
Here's how it is calculated. The tenant imports their tenancy agreement, which is analysed automatically. The system extracts the landlord's name, the due date, the amount of rent including charges, the landlord's IBAN and the contract start date. These fields are then locked: the tenant cannot modify them manually, which is precisely what makes the score credible for the landlord.
The tenant then connects their bank via Open Banking, a read-only protocol governed by the European PSD2 directive. The score is then calculated automatically.
A payment is only counted if it goes to the landlord's IBAN recorded in the tenancy agreement. The amount alone is never sufficient: a transfer of an identical amount to another account is not counted. This is an anti-fraud safeguard.
Per month, we only keep four pieces of data: the expected due date, the actual payment date, the amount and the difference between the two. Everything else is deleted once the score has been calculated.
What we do not read: the account balance, salary, savings, everyday expenses, subscriptions, loans, employer name. We do not know whether the tenant has ten euros or ten thousand euros in their account. We look at one thing: did they pay their rent, and on what date?
The score is presented in ratings (Excellent, Very good, Good, Average, Needs improvement) and is updated monthly. Recent payments carry more weight, and bonus points can be added, particularly for tenants who pay by standing order.
A tenant who does not connect their bank obtains an initial rating, but this reflects the absence of proof. The penalty is not a sanction: it is simply the difference between a claim and a verifiable fact. It disappears as soon as the bank connection is activated.
The TectoPass
The TectoPass is the candidate's rental passport. It brings together the TectoDossier and the TectoScore in a portable document, instantly viewable by QR code or number. The tenant chooses, section by section, what they share. They also see who has viewed their pass.
The TectoPass can be sent to any landlord or agency, even outside the platform. To view and verify it, the professional must create an Immotecto account, which remains free of charge.
The TectoAnnuaire
The TectoAnnuaire is the space where tenants can choose to make their profile visible. Landlords and agencies can then come and find them directly, without waiting for them to apply for a listing.
The special case of first-time tenants
If you have no rental history yet, this is precisely the time to start building one.
You are already building a professional CV. You may keep your insurance statements. But your rental payment history does not exist anywhere yet. Registering early allows you to start this accumulation from the first month, and the score builds up automatically over time.
How the pricing model works
Creating the TectoDossier and an initial basic rating are available free of charge. This is the profile-building phase.
As soon as the tenant wishes to connect their bank to obtain a score based on their actual payments, they enter into a subscription. Two tiers exist depending on whether they are in a monitoring phase or actively searching. When they have found their accommodation, they move down to the lower tier.
For landlords and agencies, specific subscriptions are available.
Why does the tenant contribute financially? The logic is simple: the free part builds the profile, the paid part keeps it up to date and distributes it. The bank connection and the monthly update of the score have a real cost. A tool that is not maintained serves neither the tenant when they need it, nor the landlord looking for reliable information.
A single ambition
Immotecto has one direction: to restore confidence in the rental market.
To achieve this, we look as little as possible into the tenant's private life, and we analyse the only data that really matters to a landlord: has this candidate paid their rent?
The full video is available at the top of this article. Mervyn Jespers details each product and answers the most frequently asked questions about how the score works and data protection.
Watch the video on YouTube