In a crowded consumer finance arena, open space lies (literally) in the hands of the consumer. In response, merchants, retailers, and health providers have partnered with financial technology companies to help consumers clear the finance hurdle and improve the customer experience. Why? Because a better financing system results in more, and larger, sales.
Retailers aren’t alone. In an increasingly competitive landscape Lenders are also looking for more opportunities to present their financing products to the customer and increase conversion of these offers into real financing volume. When we talk to our friends and partners in the financing space, we find they are looking for three things: the opportunity to drive adoption of their products; the ability to present to the consumer in an environment of assured security; and the capacity support the corporate brand strategy.
LendPro offers strong fintech solutions that accelerate adoption of your financial products.
A good consumer finance system integrates lenders’ products, eases use, and increases transaction volume across the board. A very well-designed retail fintech solution meets these requirements by achieving a number of things simultaneously: it makes the conversation between the sales associate and the customer less awkward, it presents multiple lender options to the customer in a way that the customer is better able to understand, and does both in a package of privacy, security, and simplicity. This attracts customers, expands the number of applicants, and increases approvals, at all tiers of the credit spectrum. In our implementations, we see growth of applications and approvals at all credit levels in excess of 20%, and it is not unusual to see increases of 150%.
A thoughtful fintech solution gets to work before the consumer even walks through the retailer’s doors. In the Internet age, 68 percent of customers who desire financing research it online before visiting a store. By pre-qualifying customers at home, merchants are far more likely to pull them into the store. Once they arrive, these customers can apply for financing through kiosks or tablets that present an intuitive, private application that results, on average, in an approval rate often in excess of 80%.
As a provider of consumer finance, your fintech partner should provide more than just easy and intuitive software. You should look for partners who guide merchants through the setup process and train their sales associates how to engage customers in non-intimidating ways. You should look to partners who view the kiosk and software not as the end product, but as tools to help the sales associate engage and drive financing options into customer hands. You should look for a partner eager to represent your products in ways that create success for everyone present.
LendPro offers fintech solutions with state-of-the-art security measures that reflect the toughest operating environments in the industry.
Security breaches happen all the time, so it’s little wonder that any internet-based system should have its tires thoroughly kicked before being offered to consumers. What people sometimes forget, however, is that legacy paper-based application methods are infinitely less secure. Paper can easily be lost, stolen, photocopied, or fall into the wrong hands. And asking consumers to speak their details to a transcribing sales associate is even more fraught with discomfort.
Looking beyond data encryption and security, a lender should also ask whether the user interface lends itself to in-store privacy. In other words, can a consumer easily navigate the application on a tablet or at a kiosk without a sales associate looking on? For consumers, a private application process that is comfortable to navigate helps avoid any embarrassment in having a stranger learn about their personal financial situation.
Financial institutions that offer consumer finance will—and should—always demand that their partners adhere to the security standards of that institution. All lenders have established data security and privacy practices that have been costly and painstaking to implement. A good #fintech solution adapts to a broad range of security measures and securely transfers data from merchant to lender while never permanently storing personally identifiable information (PII) in its own system. Because we adhere to the security requirements of every one of our dozens of lender partners, all lenders can be assured that the LendPro system offers the very best security possible.
Collaboration with the right fintech partner can elevate the lender’s brand.
Lenders can use a partnership with an established, secure, and agile fintech company to focus their brand and maximize revenue without expanding their servicing costs. It clearly does not support a prime lender’s brand to be presented in a sub-prime environment, and similarly it is not brand-aware to present an LTO offering to a perplexed super-prime customer.
When asked, LendPro has convened conversations between a merchant and their portfolio of lenders to tailor a lender mix at a luxury location and a different portfolio offered at a clearance center. At first glance, lenders may feel they want to be in every location that they can capture. Over time, though, working with the right partner can help lenders focus on those environments best suited for their products, eliminate the mismatches, and drive up return on committed capital while driving down servicing costs. This is a designed solution, the end result of a collaboration mind-set, and a win-win for the lenders and merchant as loan volumes grow. Partnerships work because they work together to avoid a one-size-fits-all value proposition. The best partnerships thrive because they deliver strategic advantages to all participants the highly competitive retail world.
If you’re a lender looking for a growth partner, we invite you to schedule a demo and/or contact one of our team members today by emailing info@mylendpro.com or calling: (434) 202-0137.