The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) announced that its 2017 Operations and Technology Excellence Award will go to two companies: CIT Direct Capital and Mintaka Financial. The winners were selected by a subcommittee of ELFA members and will be showcased during ELFA’s Operations and Technology Conference, Sept. 11-13 at the Westin Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina.

CIT Direct Capital is recognized for creating a technology solution for a major technology partner that enables small business customers to shop online and procure products with business financing in a simple, fast, frictionless and intuitive way. Previously, the partner was offering business financing on its online store, but interested customers were directed to a landing page and instructed to call a central sales team to apply for financing and finalize their order. The new solution enables customers to shop for products online and complete the entire finance process in less than 30 minutes. It not only reduces transaction times and allows the partner to sell more products to small businesses with financing, but also creates meaningful efficiencies for CIT Direct Capital staff.

Mintaka Financial is recognized for creating a fully connected platform for its independent partner originators. The new solution, built on Tamarack’s Salesforce.com Lease/Loan Accelerator, includes a full origination system containing a lease scoring, pricing, decision and documentation engine that is 100% API driven to interact with partners at each stage of the lease/loan lifecycle. It also includes a platform that allows partners to originate deals to Mintaka and other lessors by utilizing a customer relationship management and client API suite to pull credit, pricing, submittal and documents and fund deals.

“User and customer experience rose to the top this year as Mintaka Financial and CIT Direct Capital took on the challenge of removing friction to create better engagement and digitally transform operations,” said Andrew Cotter, EVP, CIO, Somerset Capital Group, Ltd., and Subcommittee Chair for the award. “Both companies are outstanding examples of optimizing business processes and improved relationships with customers. We look forward to hearing stories from both winners at the ELFA Operations & Technology Conference in September.”

“We congratulate all of our award applicants, who are a testament to the technology innovation underway in the equipment finance industry,” said ELFA President and CEO Ralph Petta. “We are honored to recognize CIT Direct Capital and Mintaka Financial, whose winning projects demonstrate the commitment to excellence and innovation that embodies the spirit of these awards.”

The Operations and Technology Excellence Award identifies and recognizes equipment leasing and finance companies that have demonstrated best practices in developing and implementing innovative uses of technology or creative business processes to improve operations, enhance customer interactions, enter new markets and build overall ROI. The program brings the backroom to the foreground, spotlighting the best in the industry as an example for others. More information about the award and a list of previous winners is available at www.elfaonline.org/about/awards/OTE. 

Information about the 2017 ELFA Operations and Technology Conference, Sept. 11-13 at the Westin Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina, is available at www.elfaonline.org/events/2017/OT.