The Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation released a new study, “Apps 2.0 – A Data-Driven Evaluation of Innovative Technologies.” This research builds on the original 2023 study designed to help equipment finance companies cut through the noise and identify actionable, integration-ready technologies that address operational challenges and enhance results.
“Amid a crowded market of vendor and emerging platform options, this report serves as a practical roadmap to evaluating and adopting software and microservices that can deliver measurable business value,” David Normandin, CLFP, president and CEO of Wintrust Specialty Finance, and trustee and research committee chair of ELFF, said. “It will enable equipment finance companies to confidently evaluate the tools best suited to modernizing their operations in an increasingly intelligent and composable technology environment.”
Key themes identified in the research include:
- The rise of explainable AI in underwriting
- Advancements in intelligent document processing
- Adoption of Know Your Business (KYB) orchestration tools
- Real-world use of large language models (LLMs) in customer support
The study also outlines implementation pathways tailored to modern cloud platforms, legacy environments and fintech sandboxes.
The study includes analyses of 65 emerging services and 34 established platforms (from an original pool of 300 companies) based on an enhanced scoring model that evaluated each provider’s applicability to the equipment finance lifecycle, AI maturity, operational stability and integration readiness. It was prepared by information technology company Northteq.
