Small business lending app helping mid-size, regional banks grow loan portfolios and retain customers
Listen to this articleMid-sized and community banks across the country, long outgunned by their much-larger rivals, have been successfully fighting back recently by adopting fully digital small business lending programs, executives at these banks said.
The fully digital small business lending programs, supported by easy-to-use apps, cuts down the time between application and loan approval by as much as 80 percent – an important feature for businesses looking to gear up and expand in the post-Covid world.
The small-business lending apps being used by a host of community and regional banks are changing a loan process that had remained stuck in neutral for decades.
New York-based FinTech firm, Biz2Credit, is finding its Biz2X platform extremely welcomed by its banking partners. Biz2X licenses its digital lending platform to mid-sized banks allowing them to quickly and efficiently provide thousands of small businesses badly needed capital. Now instead of filling out paperwork, small business customers of these small and mid-sized banks can provide all the necessary information to complete the loan process directly from an app on their phone.
This technology is helping banks like Popular Bank (Banco Popular) and community banks like First Home Bank issue billions of dollars in loan originations since 2019.
In short, it’s the democratization of business banking.
Thanks to the Biz2X platform, even the smallest banks can offer clients quick and easy digital lending offerings that put them on par with technology titans like Google, Amazon, or Shopify. The successful partnerships between regional and community banks and Biz2X prove that the perception that banks and FinTechs are adversaries is outdated.
“Our partnership with Biz2X allowed us to simplify and streamline the [loan] application process with an online portal—pivoting from manual paper processing to electronic submissions to the SBA,” explains Paul Mello, CPA, Solvay Bank President and Chief Executive Officer.
For small business owners, the switch from paper loan applications to Biz2X’s digital platform is a breeze.
“I found the portal on the Biz2Credit website to be very user-friendly,” said Brian Lillie, the CEO of The Party Staff Incorporated. “Uploading all the necessary application documents was very straightforward and I felt confident at every step of the way. Because of this ease, I was able to apply for a … loan in under an hour.”
Biz2X licenses its technology to financial institutions, including community banks such as Solvay, to allow them to originate loans with a digital application to improve client accessibility and underwrite loans more efficiently using Biz2X’s cloud platform, says Darren Hecht, senior vice president, sales at Biz2X.
Biz2X’s platform opens up the digital lending sector for small businesses.
Biz2X’s game-changing platform is especially timely in a banking environment still reeling from the COVID pandemic, where business customers are less willing, and able, to meet face-to-face with a banker to complete the lending process. Plus, the digital lending technology in Biz2X’s platform affords its bank clients enhanced risk controls to reduce write-offs or bad loans. Banks using the Biz2X platform can add digital merchant financing, term loans, channel financing and SBA loans, among other services that enhance their customer relationships – all while cutting costs.
The Biz2X platform has been a game-changer for these banks, which have been able to adopt the digital program, from beginning to end, in less than five months.
