As a company primarily built to be an in-house funding arm, American Leasefund has always depended strongly on American Leasing & Financial sales representatives to continue to grow our portfolio. In our efforts to encourage sustainable growth, however, we’ve been forced to turn to broker business to maintain our rate of expansion. Broker business as a model for growth is not a novel idea. Companies like Financial Pacific and Pawnee Leasing have utilized a pool of well-qualified and reputable brokers to grow their operations for several decades. For us, however, the prospect of relying …

  We received a transaction from a broker the other day. At first, we dismissed it immediately because the owners had a recent bankruptcy and their house was about to go into foreclosure. The request was for a used SUV costing $35,000. The customer was in a rural area and wanted to use the SUV as an upscale transport vehicle to expand a taxi/limo service they started three years ago. Initially, it was an easy decision to pass on the transaction. It didn’t fit our standard credit criteria, nor would it fit any of …

Rate shopping is an important part of seeking out financing. Understanding how much borrowing money is going to cost in both the short and long-term is key to making an intelligent, business-minded decision. Unfortunately, shopping for financing isn’t always about finding the best terms or rate. In some cases, people will shop for any possible lender who can get a deal done. Usually, these types of desperate measures were reserved for those who probably couldn’t get approved anywhere anyway, but recently a new form of this ‘shotgun’ approach has emerged. Customers appreciate the ability …

Managing a finance portfolio isn’t just about growing the number of performing accounts, or even keeping accounts in a performing status by quickly resolving collection issues. In fact, these operational tasks tend to be easily delegated and handled by most companies with experience. What is difficult, however, is deciding on how to temper the desire to grow with the desire to obtain a perfect balance of new accounts from a variety of industries. Investors are no doubt well-aware of the age old advice to ‘diversify, diversify, diversify.’ Creating a portfolio of accounts as a …

From a customer’s perspective, the single most important part of any financing transaction is the part where the finance company cuts the final check. In commercial equipment financing, this culmination takes place when we send a wire or check to the vendor or private party our customer is buying their equipment or vehicle from. Unfortunately, this is the part of the transaction where companies like ours get especially cautious. When monies go directly to a customer, as is the case with most direct-to-consumer lending, the customer can usually go trade their money for the …

Consumers are more conscious of their finances than ever before. Want to see the evidence? Just turn on your television and watch the array of credit report and score products being advertised on commercials while you’re watching your favorite primetime shows. Little do many people realize, however, that ‘Freecreditreport.com,’ ‘Creditchecktotal.com,’ ‘Freecreditscore.com,’ ‘Truecredit.com,’ and many of the other well-known consumer credit report and score services are actually owned by the major credit bureaus themselves. Most people don’t see a problem with this scenario. After all, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion are the best repositories for consumer …

Those familiar with this business will probably have heard the phrase ‘rebrokered transaction.’ It refers to a scenario in which a customer is passed from broker to broker in search of a final funding source, often leaving the finance or leasing company oblivious to the true origin of the deal and many of the pertinent details. The part of my job that I enjoy the most is that I often get to speak with brokers all over the country who have customers in our funding region. Speaking with people with diverse experiences helps give …

One of the most common misconceptions with respect to credit scoring is the idea that one’s credit score is an indicator of how well they pay their bills on time. Sure, that’s part of it, but credit scoring algorithms are substantially more nuanced than people are led to believe. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had an applicant vehemently swear that they should have a near perfect credit score, only to see the credit score come back in the mid 650′s. The reason has less to do with people not managing their …

In the equipment finance world, we take a lot of things for granted. One of those things is that a private party transaction with a titled piece of equipment is every bit as safe as a similar transaction with a vendor. Sure, vendors can have internal corporate hierarchies that can be difficult to deal with, but at least with a vendor there’s no mistaking that they’re able to pass a clear title. Typically, as part of our due diligence when we complete a transaction, we ask for a copy of the title (front and …

When companies providing commercial equipment financing—in the form of leases or finance agreements—say that the landscape of lending to businesses has changed over the past five years, it’s not just talk. Business owners who haven’t sought funding for a business purpose for quite some time often find themselves bewildered at the array of requirements to attain an application approval in today’s world. What comes as perhaps the biggest surprise is that most banks and financial institutions require a personal guarantee—even when the contract is drawn up in the name of a business. Just yesterday …