Why Private Lenders Are Choosing Depth Over Expansion
Why Private Lenders Are Choosing Depth Over ExpansionI keep running into the same conversation with private money lenders and fix-and-flip operators, and it usually starts the same way. Someone tells me they spent three or four years building out licensing in a dozen...
The Hidden Cost of Vendor Price Increases for Lenders
The Hidden Cost of Vendor Price Increases for Lenders There is a category of operational risk in private lending that does not get enough attention. It is not credit risk. It is not interest rate risk. It is vendor pricing risk, and for lenders running their...
Why Fix and Flip Lenders Are Consolidating Their Tech Stack
Why Fix-and-Flip Lenders Are Consolidating Their Tech Stack A pattern I keep seeing when I talk to private money lenders and fix-and-flip operators is a technology stack that has grown organically over years into something nobody would have designed on purpose. There...
Why Legal Finance Is Outgrowing Its Lending Technology
Why Legal Finance Is Outgrowing Its Lending Technology I want to share something I have been thinking about that does not come up enough in conversations about lending technology modernization. Legal financing — plaintiff advances against pending personal injury...
Why Legal Finance Needs Purpose Built Lending Software
Why Legal Finance Needs Purpose-Built Lending Software I want to share something I have been thinking about that does not come up enough in conversations about lending technology modernization, and where I think there is a real opportunity for companies willing to...
Why Legal Finance Needs Lending Software Built for It
Why Legal Finance Needs Lending Software Built for It I have spent a lot of time lately with legal finance operators — companies advancing money against pending personal injury settlements, financing litigation costs for law firms, and extending commercial credit...
Why CEOs Should Not Be Their Own Platform Testers
Why CEOs Should Not Be Their Own Platform Testers I have sat in enough implementation kickoff calls to recognize a pattern before it becomes a problem. Somewhere around week three, the founder or division head who was supposed to be the point person on the client side...
Why Cash Flow Underwriting Is Finally Catching On
Why Cash Flow Underwriting Is Finally Catching On Ask any credit officer what they look at when they evaluate a borrower, and you will hear some version of the same two ideas. Does this person have a history of paying back what they borrow. And do they have the income...
Why Alternative Lenders Need a Native Scoring Model
Why Alternative Lenders Need a Native Scoring Model There is a moment that almost every scaling merchant cash advance lender reaches in its growth journey. Merchant cash advance, for readers newer to the space, is a short-term business financing product where a...
How Auto Decline Waterfalls Help Lenders Scale Underwriting
How Auto-Decline Waterfalls Help Lenders Scale Underwriting I was talking recently with the leadership team at a merchant cash advance lender, and one number in that conversation stuck with me. They decline roughly 90 percent of the applications that come through...
Why Cash Flow Data Beats Credit Scores for CDFI Lenders
Why Cash-Flow Data Beats Credit Scores for CDFI Lenders I spend a lot of time in rooms with COOs and Heads of Lending at CDFIs and community lenders, and for the last few years one conversation keeps repeating itself. Someone brings up cash-flow underwriting, someone...
Why CDFIs Aren t Using Cash Flow Underwriting Yet
Why CDFIs Aren't Using Cash-Flow Underwriting Yet I spend a lot of my time talking to Heads of Lending and COOs at CDFIs, and there is a conversation that comes up more often now than it did even two years ago. It usually starts the same way. Someone on the credit...
Why Loss Curves Matter for Scaling MCA Lenders
Why Loss Curves Matter for Scaling MCA Lenders I had a conversation recently with a merchant cash advance lender that has grown fast over the past couple of years, and it surfaced one of the more underappreciated ideas in alternative lending. Not underwriting models....
Why Lending Is Ahead on AI Not Behind
Why Lending Is Ahead on AI, Not Behind I keep having the same conversation with lending executives, and I want to share why I think it needs to be reframed. The conversation usually starts with some version of this: regulated industries like lending and financial...
Why Lenders Resist AI It s About Rework Not Trust
Why Lenders Resist AI: It's About Rework, Not Trust I have sat across the table from a lot of operations leaders over the years, and I keep noticing the same pattern whenever the conversation turns to AI for lending. The objections almost never sound like what they...
Where AI Actually Delivers Value in Lending Operations
Where AI Actually Delivers Value in Lending Operations One of the most common questions I get from lending executives right now is not whether AI is relevant to their business. Most of them have already accepted that it is. The real question is where to start. And I...
Why AI Underwriting Assistant Beats AI Underwriter
Why 'AI Underwriting Assistant' Beats 'AI Underwriter' I have sat in enough rollout meetings now to notice a pattern that has nothing to do with the technology itself. It has to do with what the technology is called. Two lending organizations can deploy the exact same...
Why Lending Leaders Shouldn t Start With AI Tools
Why Lending Leaders Shouldn't Start With AI Tools I have had a version of the same conversation with a dozen different lending operations leaders over the past year. It usually starts the same way. Someone on the executive team, often a COO or a Head of Lending, says...