The Top Lease or Loan Software for Lenders

When was the last time your current lending software was updated? With a heightened level of competition in today’s market, you’re at a major disadvantage without the latest lending software capabilities. 

So what is today’s top lease or loan software for lenders? We’ll admit that each lender looking to replace their current lease or loan software will have a unique definition of “top.” But there are a few select key capabilities that are critical for any lender who wants to successfully compete. As you evaluate lease or loan software for lenders, use this list as comparison criteria.

Mobility and Usability Designed for Today’s Borrower

Powerful mobile devices and high-speed wireless networks have created an expectation of transacting business in nearly any location with cell coverage. If you’re not providing mobile access for lease or loan origination, you’re limiting your growth potential. It provides critical capabilities, including: 

• A mobile-responsive UI that works as well on leading mobile devices as it does on desktops. 
• A WYSIWYG development environment using configuration menus to easily create the UI that reflects your brand and lending practices.
• UI testing on simulated mobile and desktop environments to verify usability.
• Digital document capture to eliminate paper from the origination process.
• Support for e-contracts to respond quickly to lease or loan applications.
• E-signatures to facilitate quick and easy acceptance of lease or loan offers.

The servicing phase should also provide a completely digital experience by giving borrowers the ability to make payments, set up automated payments, access account statements, and determine the current payoff amount. 

Lease or loan software for lenders that supports an entirely digital experience—from origination and throughout the lease or loan servicing phase—boosts lending opportunities, gives borrowers greater control of their accounts, and reduces the demand for call center support.  

Customize Lease or Loan Software Using Configuration Menus

You’ll want to customize your lease or loan software to reflect your policies, practices, processes, and brand. Your lease or loan software should allow you to do this with configuration menus that empower knowledgeable and authorized business users to modify a wide range of software functionality to tailor it to the unique line of business requirements. The following are three key areas where configuration menus can be used to customize software.

Tailor User Interfaces to Line of Business Needs

• Define scorecard layouts and dynamically display information based on user need and step in the lease or loan origination workflow. 
• Select the data fields to be displayed in queues and configure rules for entry to and exit from queues.
• Determine screen layouts, data access, and drop-down menus based on the role or experience of underwriting, funding, and servicing agents.
  

Define Workflows to Enhance Process Efficiency

• Create decision rules to drive workflows, eliminate the variability of manual decisions, and ensure lending processes comply with current regulations.
• Establish simple to complex formulas to evaluate applicant attributes against credit policies to arrive at risk-adjusted terms within seconds.
• Ensure documentation required by federal and state regulations are automatically generated and sent to the borrower via email.

One of the most powerful applications of workflow is auto-structuring that uses a waterfall looping process, incrementally modifying terms and applying decision rules to match credit policies for applications that initially fail. When a match is made, the workflow structures a risk-adjusted lease or loan, including stipulations. Without a match, the workflow initiates a decline.

Integrate With Value-Added Information Services

• Easily include pre-integrated, third-party information sources and services. 
• Select from dozens of specialized, cloud-based information sources to extend the capabilities of your lease or loan software, significantly improve the speed of lending decisions, and reduce risk. In particular, look for pre-integrated information services with:
• Alternative credit data capabilities regarding employment, income, real estate, utility, and rental payments to provide lenders with another way to grant leases or loans to applicants with “thin” credit records.
• Fraud detection and identity verification services to help avoid risks before they negatively impact your lease or loan portfolio.
• Vehicle valuation features to accurately calculate depreciation curves, loan-to-value ratios, historical values by model and segment, and residual modeling and analysis. 

The configuration approach to customizing lease or loan software allows you to quickly respond to the ever-changing strategy needs of the business. It also brings the added benefit of maintaining a record of who made modifications and when they were made. That provides an added level of confidence in the event of a compliance audit.

The above information only covers three key areas where configuration menus can be utilized; but customization via configuration should also cover user access and security, debt and income calculations, queue prioritization and management, stipulations, outbound calls, communications, verifications, custom data fields, and data exports.

Your Lease or Loan Software Platform Needs to Be Cloud-Based

Cloud technologies have radically transformed the way computing and communications services are developed, delivered, and consumed. The cloud reduces capital and operational expenses by eliminating the costs of server and storage hardware, as well as dedicated on-premises space and electricity. When evaluating a vendor’s cloud capabilities, look for:

• Lease or loan software hosted on one or more of the major U.S. cloud providers (Azure, AWS, Oracle, Google).
• Lease or loan software vendor uptime metrics as close to 100% as possible.
• Software that can easily scale up and down as lease or loan volumes change through market cycles.
• A fully-integrated solution that covers the complete lending lifecycle—origination to pay-off.
• Easy integration capabilities with a wide range of cloud-based lending information services.

Extensive Automation Across the Entire Lending Cycle

One capability that distinguishes the top lease or loan software for lenders is the extensive use of automation throughout the entire lending cycle. From the perspective of improving the borrower experience, this involves consistently executing decisions and processes to comply with regulations, and lowering overall operating costs. Look for these automation capabilities:

• Out-of-the-box workflows driven by decision rules that provide a framework for automating: 
  •  lease or loan origination, funding, delinquencies, defaults, end-of-loan, etc.
  • resolutions for common call center inquiries
  • the creation and distribution of documents and communications
  • calls to third-party information sources and services that extend the core capabilities of the lease or loan software to accelerate decisions and reduce risk
  • auto-approvals and auto-declines

Frameworks accelerate lease or loan software implementation; there’s no need to start from scratch. And with configuration menus, workflows and decision rules are easily modified to meet the specific policies, processes, and practices of the lender.

Integrated Analytics for Process Improvement and Portfolio Management

Modern lease or loan software allows you to capture and create significant volumes of applicant, process, borrower, and lease or loan data throughout the lending process. These data contain a wealth of business insight that helps lenders to continually improve lending process efficiency, reduce risks, and improve portfolio performance.

Analytics capabilities should come tightly integrated with the lease or loan software to avoid the cost and complexity of integrating third-party analytic tools. The analytics should also provide out-of-the-box reports to help lenders understand lease or loan sources, origination metrics, underwriting and servicing efficiency, and portfolio performance.

Out-of-the-box reports are the fastest way to mine the wealth of information generated by your lending practice. To get the maximum value from analytics, knowledgeable users should be able to customize the reports to select the data dimensions and measures that provide summarized and detailed insights meaningful to their responsibilities. The best lease or loan software solutions automate the analysis and reporting process by delivering regularly scheduled reports to users’ desktops. 

Culture and Customer Support Matter

When looking for the top lease or loan software for lenders, don’t forget to consider the vendor’s culture and industry experience. After all, it’s the foundation for the strategy they execute, the software they develop, and the support they provide. In evaluating the vendor culture, look for:

• An exclusive focus on the lending industry.
• A significant number of employees with real-world lending experience.
• A vibrant user community that is supported by annual conferences, customer round tables, and support portals for immediate access to the latest industry-related information. 
• References from customers who have successfully implemented the software.

Determining the Top Lease or Loan Software for Lenders

Moving to a new lease or loan software is a major decision. However, the functionality and capability provided by modern lease or loan software make this process far easier than the software implementation experience of years ago. 

Mobile opens a new channel of lending opportunity. Configuration allows you to transform “out-of-the-box” lease or loan software into a lending solution that meets your unique needs. Integration with cloud-based information sources provides capabilities unavailable just a few years ago. The cloud enables rapid implementation and scalability to meet the most demanding lending cycles. 

Analytics put the power in your hands to continually improve lending efficiency and portfolio performance. In your evaluation of lease or loan software for lenders, take a holistic perspective. Consider not only the technology, but also the vendor and culture.