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Rising industry activity and innovationBy Carla Young Harrington, Susan Carol Creative

WITH THE NEEDS OF THE 2020 CUSTOMER TOP OF MIND,2018 should prove an especially active year for equipment leasingand asset finance software providers and their customers.

Many providers have recently introduced or are planning torelease updated products and new applications – some infused withemerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) that only ayear ago were considered more theory than reality in the industry.At the same time, increasing numbers of asset finance organisationsare upgrading or changing software, including companies that haddelayed decisions in recent years while awaiting new releases.

The year ahead. Software changes designed to improveinformation flows, data analytics, regulatory compliance and, mostnoticeably, the user experience are among key developmentsrecently introduced or planned by software providers surveyed forthis article. Greater use of innovative technology is also evident.

NETSOL Technologies in the past year released an inte-grated digital platform, NFS DIGITAL, that includes virtual real-ity (VR) functionality and AI-powered chatbot programs forautomated customer service responses.

“We have been involved with developing solutions in aug-mented reality (AR) and virtual reality which we plan to bring tomarket in 2018,” added Farooq Ghauri, Chief Operating Officer,North America. “The sudden increase of VR devices has createdyet another channel of communication that businesses must useto reach their customers.”

An example of this in the auto retail space is the company’sdevelopment of a “virtual showroom” where users can view carsfrom every angle, in detail, as well as custom build vehicles andprocess a lease contract application right from the VR solution, hesaid.

White Clarke Group’s recent updates to CALMS includecustomer direct and self-serve channels, an updated UX/UI, newopen-API technology, improved multi-tenancy architecture, anenhanced lease/loan module and a digital processing module thatincludes eSignatures and eID.

In 2018, the company intends to launch a cloud-hosted ver-sion of CALMS by utilising its partnership with Amazon WebServices, add new interactive business intelligence dashboards andautomated analytics tools, and move closer toward AI-drivencapabilities, said Brendan Gleeson, Group CEO.

“Artificial intelligence has finally made the transition froman experimental technology in the laboratory to becoming thesingle most transformational development of our time. The end-

goal for artificial intelligence is to produce software that ‘thinks’or in other words, can make decisions as quickly and reliably as ahuman,” Gleeson noted. “We are exploring opportunities for AI-driven software integrations including chatbots, voice recognitionand social media monitoring tools for customer service and clientself-serve channels.”

Linedata’s progress with its Linedata Ekip system in the pastyear included bringing its first US customer live, creating dataanalysis models for business intelligence, and deploying a mobilesolution. The company also updated Linedata Uniloan for manag-ing complex structured finance.

This year, the company expects to implement the manage-ment of EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) com-pliance in its products, addressing a need that officials noted is areal concern of customers. Linedata also plans to include mecha-nisms for initiating instant payments via SEPA Instant Paymentsin Europe, and mobile customer self-service capabilities.

But their most interesting announcement could relate to AI.“We are working on artificial intelligence to leverage the mass ofdata our customers manage and the analysis of the customer’sbehaviour to drive some critical functions, such as scoring andbad debt management,” said Johnnie Halliday, Director of Sales,Lending & Leasing in the UK. “We are also working on artificialintelligence and OCR (optical character recognition) to acceler-ate and improve the quality of the analysis of the documents pro-vided by customers.”

LeaseTeam Solutions’ ASPIRE updates in 2017 ranged fromenhanced syndication functionality, reflecting the need to gener-ate volume and more diversified portfolios under restrictive creditregulations, to soft cost accounting features addressing changes inrevenue recognition.

Company President Jeff Van Slyke said this year’s plansinclude a customer portal rollout driven by the small-ticket con-sumer sector but useful to the entire industry, a vendor/brokerportal rollout for submitting transactions, managing pipelines,retrieving closing packages and reviewing findings, and an updateto address compliance with IFRS 16 changes.

With the massive movement in the equipment finance arenato the Salesforce platform for its CRM and marketing capabili-ties, LeaseTeam decided to begin development on an integrationsystem. “Similar to a turnkey solution, this bi-directional integra-tion will make ASPIRE and Salesforce feel like one cohesivesolution,” Slyke added.

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Alfa, formerly known as CHPConsulting, recently revamped theweb-based user interface of AlfaSystems, produced Alfa Gateway toenable other systems within anorganisation to access Alfa Systems,and launched Alfa Hosting, a cloudhosting solution and managed serv-ice.

In 2018, the company plans todeliver custom front ends directly tocustomers. “This is being driven bythe benefits brought by an integratedsolution, such as end-to-end pricingand a rich service catalogue. Having a single vendor eases pro-curement, integration, configuration and application ownership,”said Andrew Flegg, Head of Solution Architecture.

In other developments, Alfa is working to remove a small setof restrictions for end-of-day account closures in order to providea true 24/7 operation with Alfa Systems. Building on its partner-ship announced with NuoDB, the company also will release ver-sions of Alfa Systems that support NuoDB’s elastic SQL database,Flegg said.

In 2017 Banqsoft responded to the increased demand forfleet solutions with enhancements providing more functionalityand automation in its fleet module, extended the functionality inthe open API layer and added components for self-service front-ends for View21 products.

“In 2018, we plan to focus further on process automationand simplification of the user interface,” said Terje Kjøs, BusinessArea Manager for financial solutions. “Expansion of the open APIstrategy will also continue. This is a trend that is more and moreimportant for our successful customers, who want to be evenmore efficient and able to offer secure and self-serviced financingin only seconds, 24/7.”

In 2018 the company expects to maintain its strategy of inte-grating with new third parties to give customers more choices,and anticipates a number of upgrades.

Sopra Banking’s Cassiopae financing software was recentlyenhanced with a dealer/broker portal using new technology, man-agement capabilities for the IFRS 9 lease accounting standard, andcomplete fleet management features for large car manufacturers.

“We expect to continue in the same direction in 2018,”noted Nicolas Ullmo, Product Marketing Director. “Criticalpoints to manage will be IFRS 16, retail portals with features suchas document import/document split, eSignature under variouscountry legal frameworks, new extensions in factoring, numerouscountry extensions for regulatory and payment requirements, andintegration in the Sopra Banking platform.”

Constellation Financing Systems in the past year has simpli-

fied data trending support so customers can use more metrics toplan future growth, redesigned core nightly routines for improvedscalability, and streamlined user navigation in its customer servicemodule.

The company has ambitious goals for 2018. “We are plan-ning the development of a new product that will consolidate bothEDGE and ASSET into one single application on the web, withthe initial phase scheduled for release in Q1 2019,” said ItaloGuerrieri, Business Development Manager.

Meanwhile, 2018 enhancements will allow customers tochange bank details, review future payment streams and view his-torical payments using the self-service mobile app or customerweb portal. The ASSET user interface will also be upgraded.Additionally, Constellation plans to integrate with BluePay tosupport customers who want to pull cash instantly, and with anew business intelligence tool as a complementary option forASSET and EDGE users, Guerrieri noted.

International Decision Systems (IDS) has been focusing oninvestments that fuel digital transaction management throughintegration with leading eSignature/vaulting solutions, automatedpricing functions, and dealer CRM. Recent enhancements havealso expanded support for managed services transactions and assetusage transactions across asset types.

Additionally, the company has been pursuing automationopportunities, such as system-to-system integrations utilising webservices, automating mass updates within the application, risk-based pricing, and auto-decisioning, said CEO MichaelCampbell. Other priorities have included complying with newregulatory mandates, most notably the new lease accounting stan-dards, through functionally enabled system modifications.

“IDS will continue to drive investment toward these keytrends in 2018,” Campbell added. “Longer term, we are carefullywatching four trends: disruptive technology, the managed servicesor “Uberisation” trend, intelligent automation, and digital strate-gies. For example, disruptive technology trends including trans-formational change and fintech could result in possible drivers

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2018 should prove an especially active yearfor equipment leasing and asset financesoftware providers and their customers.

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including Cloud Gen-2, blockchain/alternative currencies andadaptive security architecture.”

Ivory Consulting was busy throughout 2017 preparing forthe upcoming release of SuperTRUMP 12, a major productupdate that features functionality for the new accounting stan-dard, Topic 842, and contains enhancements for many of the com-pany’s products including SuperTRUMP for Salesforce.

More developments are expected early in 2018 with thegeneral release of the company’s new asset management product,which CEO Scott Thacker described as a complete end-to-endasset management lifecycle solution comprised of three modules.

“With the asset valuation module, you can create andmanage the asset valuations used by sales, pricing and credit per-sonnel, as well as others. The asset disposition module tracks mid-term and end-of-term disposition information for assets while theasset remarketing module’s collaborative platform enables cross-functional teams to communicate and work efficiently,” Thackersaid.

Odessa recently introduced a digital business transformationplatform with features for low-code development and testautomation. The company has also enhanced LeaseWave with aREST Web API, two-factor authentication, a new module formulti-payoff quotes, and customer portal capabilities for user self-registration and ACH account/schedule management.

More development is planned for 2018. “To help modernise the user experience, recent LeaseWave

technical enhancements include approvals from e-mail, SMS/testmessage capability and UI Grid enhancements,” said LeonardLane, Senior Vice President of Product Management. “And incontinuing to enrich LeaseWave functionality, new features foren-masse document type/template configuration and cross-col-lateralisation are being rolled out.”

The plans of individual software providers reflect continuingbroader trends in the industry. Richard Ryan, a digital consultantand Partner with Invigors EMEA in the UK, has noted a growingemphasis on enhancing the customerexperience at point-of-sale and withself-service applications. Othertrends include the use of mobile appsto provide value-added services tolessees and drivers, and investmentsin plug-and-play architectures bylessors in order to supportomnichannel business models andintegration of third-party serviceproviders.

“Leasing systems which can beplugged into vendors’ originationplatforms as an API are being imple-mented already by the likes ofCapital One in the US and BlackHorse in the UK. This provides arich and highly functional back endwith little complexity for the vendorin terms of integration and a highlyconfigurable, high quality user expe-

rience,” said Ryan, who anticipates that “Leasing as an API” willbecome increasingly important in the year ahead.

The software trend favouring user friendly, flexible solutionsalso impacts information technology (IT) products specificallydesigned for the end client, the equipment finance customer. “Tostay on top, there is a need to provide the end client with asimple, flexible front-end platform that allows software purchasesto be integrated into a company’s overall IT spend/asset manage-ment system,” noted Carmen Ene, CEO of 3 Step IT, which spe-cialises in IT asset life-cycle management solutions and is based inFinland.

“The key to success in the future will be to give clients aholistic view of their IT infrastructure, devices and software, in away that will enable them to optimise asset usage while having apredictable flow of invoicing.”

Shifting customer preferences are having a major impact onthe industry in other ways, she added. “One of the main trendstoday, consuming products ‘as-a-service,’ is expanding. We see thismore and more combined with the change in mentality from‘owning’ what you need to run your business to ‘having access.’ Itapplies to the way we ‘consume’ – cars, buildings, summer housesand now increasingly IT. In the IT world, software is leading theway with ‘as-a-service’ while clients still tend to buy hardware andservices, but this is changing. The trick now is to blend software,hardware and services into a seamless service platform.”

An increase in industry activity is also anticipated in 2018 asmore equipment finance companies are making major softwaredecisions than there were a year or two ago, said John Rizzi, Headof the Digital Advisory Practice for The Alta Group in the US.Some activity is the result of ageing legacy systems and some isdue to pent-up demand as equipment finance companies havewaited for rollouts of new releases to assess user feedback.

Innovation is another hallmark of recent leasing softwareenhancements. “I’m seeing more emerging technology, with ven-dors and suppliers creating apps that are taking these technologies

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The sudden increase of virtual reality devices has created yet another channel of communication thatbusinesses must use to reach their customers.

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beyond the theoretical stage. Machine sensors and other asset util-isation technologies are being employed within the ‘Internet ofThings.’ Companies are beginning to create apps based on bigdata analytics, and artificial intelligence is gaining ground in therisk management domain,” Rizzi said. He pointed to IBM’sWatson as one example of AI platforms providing applicationstargeting the financial services industry

Anticipating 2020. Much has been discussed and writtenabout preparing companies to meet the needs of “the 2020 cus-tomer,” but what does this mean for equipment finance technol-ogy? Based on the insights of providers who participated in thisarticle, equipment finance software for the 2020 customer mustsupport a combination of the following features and functionali-ties, depending on one’s sources:• cloud applications• open API• customer self-service• personalised customer experiences• software as a service • managed service transactions• interconnectivity• multi-country implementations• changing lease standards• successful platforms• co-innovation• tailored preferences• emerging technologies

“In the next few years, I believe we will see the inclusion ofIoT, telematics, business intelligence and big data in leasing soft-ware to match the demanding requirements of millennials.” saidGhauri of NETSOL Technologies. “The shift is towards heavyreliance for business decision making on data-driven insights andusage-based financing and leasing.”

Thacker of Ivory Consulting also points to the importanceof emerging technologies including AI, IoT sensors, blockchainand increased drone use but cautions that corresponding risks likecybersecurity threats must also be managed. Cloud applicationstopped his list of must-have capabilities, and several otherproviders agreed. He predicted that most software will be avail-able as a cloud solution and that many companies will havemigrated their software from a desktop computer or server intothe cloud by 2020.

As Flegg of Alfa noted, “The move to the cloud is the keytechnology change being made by many organisations, includingthose providing equipment finance.”

Several providers cited growing interest in systems that givecustomers choices, customised services and continuity. “Open APIcapabilities for easy integrations are important as they allow cus-tomers to choose best of breed providers. We see an increasinginterest for this in addition to options like software as a serviceand 24/7 customer service channels on every surface,”, said Kjøsof Banqsoft.

“Previously, consumers were prepared to accept a standard-ised service or services which varied according to which channelthey used to interact with a supplier,” noted Gleeson of WhiteClarke Group. “Now they want ‘one digital life,’ seeing the same

levels of service across all their touchpoints with a particular com-pany, and expecting that service to be tailored to match their pref-erences.”

Odessa’s technology focuses on the evolution from productsto platforms, which Lane says will prove to be a core strategicmove for the 2020 customer. “Technologies that help power busi-nesses need to be adaptive, and increasingly require putting morecontrol in the hands of the user. Gone are the days of the typicalcustomisation cycle as the line between the creator of IP and con-sumer of IP starts to blur. Co-innovation is the critical keystoneto the long-term success of any platform,” he said.

The combined forces of recent industry developments andnew technologies could also change customer-vendor relations.

“With managed solutions and the advent of assets-enabled inthe Internet of Things, the opportunity to use big data strategi-cally for fundamental changes in customer-vendor relations is athand,” said Campbell of IDS.

The use of full lifecycle solutions, coupled with deeper cus-tomer interactions around managed solutions, will help equip-ment finance companies to first compile the data necessary oninteractions, usage, and both positive and negative outcomes overtime, he noted. The data then helps to develop behaviour modelsthat will significantly improve customer understanding and offermanagement. On the flip side, these same models can give earlywarning as behaviours change to the negative – allowing a moreproactive management of negative financial outcomes.

For software providers whose solutions are sold directly toclients purchasing or leasing IT devices, the 2020 customer willalso demand better data for greater cost-efficiency. “The goal is todevelop the platforms and design the solutions that will providethe customer a clear view of all of his or her IT spend and licens-ing/upgrade positions. This must be delivered in an effective wayso the end client can both spread out the software spend overtime, and also see software use matched to the device position,”added Ene of 3 Step IT.

About the author:Carla Young Harrington is a Senior Associate with Susan CarolCreative (www.scapr.com). She has reported on equipmentfinance and technology for more than 20 years.

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Author:Carla Young Harrington

Senior AssociateSusan Carol Creative

1040 Hotchkiss PlFredericksburgVA 22401-8409

USTel: +1 540 479 7835

Email: carla@scapr.com

Website: www.scapr.com

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