The Best Lease or Loan Management Software for Lenders in 2021

If your current loan or lease management software was originally installed years ago, you’re probably finding that:  

• It just doesn’t meet the expectations of today’s borrowers. 
• It causes you to struggle when trying to quickly make process changes in response to recent economic challenges. 
• Your loan or lease servicing processes involve too many manual tasks. 

Whether it’s one, two, or all three of these problems, it’s time to consider investing in new lease or loan management software. 

While it’s up to you to ultimately decide which loan management software is the best for your business, there are several key capabilities that any modern loan management software should provide. These capabilities are critical to not only meeting the current expectations of consumers, but also to providing a loan management platform that allows you to continually improve process efficiency and reduce servicing costs without the need for time-consuming programming. 

✔ Cloud-Based Loan And Lease Servicing Platform 

There’s no debating the benefits of cloud-based loan and lease management software. The move to the cloud across all industries is confirmation of the technical advantages, lower operational costs, better security, automated software updates, and improved performance. If your software vendor doesn’t offer a cloud-based solution, it’s time to look elsewhere. 

✔ Tight Integration With Your Lease or Loan Origination System

For many lending organizations, the software that originates then manages the loan or lease and is a collection of poorly integrated products, each with a different user interface. The lack of tight integration hinders efficiency, often frustrates the lender’s borrowers, and requires data duplication. Moving forward, you’ll want your management system tightly integrated with the loan origination system and digital borrower interface to provide a smooth and efficient transition from origination to servicing. This will provide the following benefits: 

• All relevant borrower information—including digital copies of important documents— will be immediately and securely available to servicing agents, enabling an engaging welcome call that sets the stage for a positive lending relationship.
• A single, consolidated view of the borrower where all data, including payments, inquiries, complaints, and communications (email, text, letters, etc.) generated throughout the life of a loan or lease are available to streamline every customer service interaction.

Your lease or loan management software should be a natural extension of your lease or loan origination software. Tight integration between the two phases helps ensure an effortless transition from origination to servicing.  

✔ Configuration—Not Programming—to Meet Your Unique Lending Requirements  

In the past, most software applications required time-consuming, custom programming to transform out-of-the-box software into a solution that would meet your unique lending needs. And if you wanted to make changes, programming time and talent were required. Modern loan or lease servicing software should eliminate the programming requirement and give lending professionals the ability to configure the system to meet their lending requirements. 

Look for loan and lease management software that provides intuitive configuration menus that allow you to:

• Easily establish access permissions based on user roles.
• Create role-based user interfaces tailored to optimize customer service interactions. 
• Define and modify rules-based workflows and queuing priorities that reflect changing servicing requirements.
• Integrate innovative lending information sources and services to enhance servicing efficiency.

Configuration makes it easy for lending professionals to implement role-based security, create user interfaces that optimize every aspect of loan servicing, establish the decision rules and workflows that enable more efficient processes, and tailor the overall servicing policies and processes to match their specific lending practices. As business requirements change, configuration makes it easy to make appropriate modifications. 

✔ Integration With Information Sources That Improve Service Quality and Efficiency

An increasing number of information sources and services are available to help lenders reduce risk and become more efficient in executing common loan and lease servicing activities. Vehicle loan and lease management is easier with services that provide:

• End-of-lease excessive wear and use assessment. 
• Damage inspection to determine if a vehicle should be repaired or written off. 
• Vehicle remarketing, including logistics management. 

For all loans and leases, services that notify lenders of events such as bankruptcies or deceased borrowers can help expedite loan or lease closure and maintain compliance.

✔ Rich in Automation Capabilities

Considering the volume and frequency of common servicing activities, automation can have the greatest impact on servicing efficiency. It relieves servicing agents of repetitive, manual tasks, helps reduce response time to customer inquiries, and improves overall servicing productivity while simultaneously lowering servicing costs. When it comes to automation, look for loan and lease management software that:

• Uses configuration menus to create rule-based workflows that drive process automation.
• Provides real-time account updates regarding payments, account status, and general ledger entries, giving borrowers and servicing professionals accurate account information.
• Employs workflows and queue management (customizable via configuration menus) for common servicing functions such as:
  
  • Borrower welcoming/onboarding. 
  • Complaint management. 
  • Delinquency notifications (30, 60, 90 days past due). 
  • Default management and bankruptcy. 
  • Balloon payments. 
  • Repossession, end-of-lease, and remarketing for vehicles. 

The best loan management software products will offer a wide range of automation capabilities that support greater efficiency in all areas of customer service and will also make it easy for lending professionals to integrate, implement, and modify those capabilities to meet changing lending requirements. 

✔ Digital Servicing Experience

The best loan or lease origination software supports a digital application submission process via a desktop or mobile device—including the digital capturing of any required documentation—that can be completed in a matter of minutes. 

While not all loan or lease servicing requests can be handled digitally, providing those capabilities not only gives borrowers greater control of their account, but also reduces servicing call volumes. Look for loan and lease management software that provides these digital servicing capabilities:

• 24/7/52 secure access to account information, like payments, payment history, and payoff amounts.
• Ability to set up automated payments and make additional payments.
• Secure communications with servicing agents when needed.
• FAQs to aid in all areas of the loan servicing process. 

A digital loan or lease servicing experience of this caliber also allows borrowers to manage business transactions anytime, anywhere thanks to nearly ubiquitous, high-speed communication services. It is sure to meet—if not exceed—the expectations of today’s consumers. 

When Evaluating Lease or Loan Management Software for Lenders in 2021, Also Consider This…

If 2021 is the year for replacing or upgrading your lease or loan management software, there will be dozens of companies to choose from. In addition to the capabilities mentioned above, consider several other factors that directly influence the quality and functionality of the software as well as the level of support services. 

Look for a vendor who has demonstrated years—even decades—of experience focusing exclusively on the lending industry. Their extensive knowledge will serve as the groundwork for creating an end-to-end software architecture designed to meet today’s needs with the flexibility to incorporate innovative lending technologies as they become available. 

It is also important to look for a well-established user community that represents the entire spectrum of lenders—national and regional banks, credit unions, captives, and fincos. A strong vendor-community relationship is mutually beneficial, with users requesting functional enhancements and vendors responding with improvements incorporating the latest best practices and technological innovations. Annual user conferences, online support portals for collaborative ideation and problem solving, and user-funded improvements are key aspects of software vendors at the forefront of developing, delivering, and supporting loan management software for lenders.