According to LeaseQ CEO Vernon Tirey, the equipment finance industry must automate in order to maximize new opportunities and propel the industry forward. Through studying the industry and hearing the stories of lenders, equipment sellers and business owners, Tirey has learned:

• – First, the industry is not very customer-focused.
  For borrowers, financing equipment is a miserable, painful process both in shopping for financing and getting a quote, and getting funded.
• – Second, there is not a lot of activity or opportunity online.
  Quality equipment finance deal flow is found at the equipment vendor.
• – Third, few finance companies have automated underwriting.
  This last point is especially bad news. Due to the fact that an automated marketplace must provide reliable instant quotes to effectively match borrowers and lenders, an automated underwriting engine is critical. Rather than tap into the underwriting engines found at lenders, LeaseQ needed to build an underwriting engine and work with the credit department at each lender to develop an effective solution.

Even though the industry is ready and eager for change, adding automated underwriting, advanced analytics and customer-focused strategies is a lot of change management for lenders. But despite the challenges, leading small-ticket lenders are starting to automate the finance quote process so that borrowers can see their personalized monthly payments in seconds.

To learn more about Vernon’s vision for equipment financing automation, read his opinion piece on MonitorDaily: http://www.monitordaily.com/opinion-posts/equipment-financing-is-ripe-for-automation/