Robert Preville,
Founder & CEO,
APPROVE

Intuitive. Seamless. Frictionless. So many of the products and services that are integral to our daily lives have adopted these properties to stay relevant and necessary. Increasingly, experiences that feel effortless are becoming the expectation not only in the consumer world but also in the world of B2B services and transactions.

The equipment finance industry is no exception. And as a recent Suite by Monitor article, “Embedded Finance Meets Vendor Equipment Finance”, points out, embedded finance, often provided by companies outside the traditional equipment finance sphere, is helping to drive the shift toward a more user-friendly, streamlined vendor financing experience.

The Suite by Monitor article calls this “a defining moment for the industry” and suggests it brings both challenges and opportunities to traditional equipment financers. Since launching a technology platform designed to simplify equipment financing, my team and I have worked closely with equipment vendors to better understand their changing needs. By responding to these evolving demands, finance firms can position themselves as effective partners in helping sellers close more deals and increase their transaction volumes.

Embedded finance is not about replacing traditional lenders — it’s about making them more accessible and more effective. When lenders embrace this shift, they can become indispensable to equipment vendors and buyers alike.

Real-Time Transparency and Speed Win Deals

Knowledge is power and time is money. These aren’t just aphorisms; they’re stark realities for equipment sellers. Today’s vendors want real-time visibility into their deals at every step of the financing process — and they want that process to move quickly.

One key challenge we heard from vendors was that financing conversations often stalled the sales process. To address this, we developed a solution focused on speeding up approvals and maintaining communication between buyers and sellers. By integrating tools that allow buyers to complete a short application and receive near-instant preapproval decisions, we’ve seen increased sales momentum. These tools often use a mix of machine learning and third-party business data to assess eligibility and reduce fraud risk.

Real-time updates keep all parties informed, which helps maintain sales energy and prevents deals from getting lost in the shuffle. This level of visibility helps sellers stay engaged, buyers feel confident and lenders make efficient decisions.

A Wider Net Captures More Deals

A recent survey by asset finance insurance provider Acquis found that while 85% of small- to medium-sized businesses plan to invest in new equipment in 2025, 41% plan to pay with credit cards — the ultimate embedded payment experience.

This signals a clear challenge for equipment lenders: If financing isn’t as easy as a credit card swipe, buyers may default to less strategic, higher-cost payment methods. Embedded finance offers a solution — combining the ease of credit cards with the financial benefits of equipment financing.

Beyond speed, embedded platforms can tell buyers not only that they are approved for financing for a specific piece of equipment but also present in real time how much additional financing (and buying power) is available. With this knowledge in the hands of both buyers and sellers, sales conversations can adjust and buyers can make a more informed decision on how much equipment they want to purchase to grow their business.

Additionally, technology can enable embedded finance platforms to instantly analyze applications, vet them against a versatile pool of lenders and match the buyer their best-fit lender(s). Efficiently identifying the best financing options for buyers results in a net positive for buyers, sellers and lenders.

Beyond Financing: Become a Growth Partner

The most forward-thinking equipment finance firms won’t stop at providing fast financing — they’ll position themselves as growth enablers for vendors. By helping sellers to market financing options more effectively, lenders can drive more sales and more financing volume.

Sellers can benefit tremendously if their embedded finance platform helps them communicate the benefits of equipment financing and promote the fact that they can make the financing process easy for buyers. We have responded to this need by providing easy-to-use templates for landing pages and providing a hub of marketing aids that sellers can use in their sales communications. These include automated marketing e-mail sequences that can help communicate the benefits of financing equipment to potential buyers.

This is another area where we are working actively to bring AI and automation to bear to the benefit of our customers. By automating transaction emails that keep both the buyer and the vendor apprised of deal status, we are delivering a level of transparency that B2B customers are increasingly coming to expect from the services they use.

The Future Belongs to Adaptable Lenders

Embedded finance has sparked more competition in the equipment finance industry, but it has also unlocked unprecedented opportunities. Yes, competition is heating up as technologically astute firms from outside of the industry find ways to solve the problems our customers face day in and day out. But when traditional equipment financers partner with tech platforms that can respond to these needs, opportunity abounds for increased sales and increased transactions.

The message is clear: Embedded finance isn’t about displacing lenders. It’s about empowering them to serve more customers, close more deals and become the trusted partner that equipment sellers and buyers can’t do without. Lenders who seize this moment will do more than survive — they’ll thrive. •

Robert Preville is Founder and CEO of APPROVE, a fintech solution that enables equipment manufacturers and distributors to integrate financing at every point of influence in an equipment buyer’s journey. Preville was awarded Monitor’s 2022 Disruptor Icon award.