How Lending Companies are Adapting Online

Cyril Odhiambo
3 min readMay 16, 2022
Photo by Shane on Unsplash

After the pandemic, several industries realized how crucial an online presence is to their survival. Lending companies had to adapt to the online market quickly. People needed credit but couldn’t appear in person for various qualifying steps.

Below is how various lending companies had to and are still adapt the online sphere over the last couple of years.

Approach to Credit Score

Today, lenders need to ensure that they can leverage the digital space to improve their approval process. After the pandemic hit and people weren’t allowed to go out, lenders needed a way to get to their customers. Lenders had to migrate online to meet their clients’ needs.

Most of them, [the lenders] made the necessary move and ensured that preliminary approval was done online. Today, you can quickly review your creditworthiness online without triggering a hard check. This will give you an idea of what you are looking at in getting approval for the loan.

For example, you can get an online calculator to find out if you qualify for a loan or not. The online calculators are integrated into the various credit bureaus to help you get a full picture of what you can borrow. The online lending solutions can give you an idea regardless of the loan you want.

Opportunity for Digital Lenders

With the huge lenders, at times, dragging their feet to move to the online market, digital lenders took the opportunity. The market was big enough to explore, and the pandemic exposed the vacuum. Those in the digital lending spaces had lenders ready to pounce and cover the void.

Several digital lenders are still coming into the market even after the pandemic. This is due to the high demand for lenders with little or no qualifying attributes. For example, there was a 200% increase in digital mortgage lending from March to April in New York alone.

Between that time, there has also been a 72% increase in several lending apps in the European market; which is huge. Though most of these lenders charge huge interest rates, clients still use them due to the easy approval process. And the fact that these loans are unsecured makes them appealing.

Promotion of Products

Initially, most online lenders didn’t seem to embrace the idea of the digital space, even when it comes to marketing. Today, they can’t continue to ignore the digital sphere as they use it to promote their products. With many of their clients moving in the same direction, they needed to change.

But before promoting products online, the lenders had to ensure they had the proper structure in place. For example, pre-approved processes have been moved online to make the process easy. Clients want links from the ad and move quickly to the approval process.

Lenders are taking the whole process in stride that you will struggle to find any lender that doesn’t have a pre-approved process on their site. This isn’t only to make the clients’ lives easier, and the lenders’ lives are easy.

Credit Cards Have Joined in

Did you know that you can apply for a credit card, get approval and get the card delivered from the comfort of your home? This is a vast improvement that was majorly experienced after the pandemic. Credit card companies are part of the lenders’ circle, and they have taken full advantage of the online sphere.

The concept of credit cards has set the tone for most lenders to use. For example, the mortgage industry follows the credit card concept. You can get pre-approved online and get your mortgage straight from your computer.

You will, of course, need to provide the lender with all the info they need, but with scanning software and all, it’s easy to give the info. With lenders employing various pre-approval software, getting your loan approved takes a few days. The financing will then be disbursed in the agreed-upon timeline.

Conclusion

After the pandemic, you couldn’t get out but still had needs to be met. One of the best ways lending companies could reach clients was online. Adapting to the whole new was paramount to the survival of many of them — they are still adapting online today as the need has only gone up.

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Cyril Odhiambo

Is a freelance writer and blogger for hire. He’d like to see your writing career grow. When he’s not engaged in writing, he likes to watch football and series.