QuickFi By Innovation Finance USA was one of the honorees of Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards program this year. The awards honor clean technology, innovative corporate initiatives, brave new designs for cities and buildings and other creative works that are supporting the growth of positive social innovation and tackling social inequality, climate change and public health.

QuickFi provides business loans to creditworthy small and medium businesses (SMBs) in the United States. QuickFi offers nearly instant, self-service term financing to business equipment buyers that is available through a mobile application.

Creditworthy SMB borrowers use QuickFi to obtain equipment financing and leasing for new business equipment in minutes (instead of days or weeks) at fixed interest rates without fees or hidden costs. All QuickFi term loans are accompanied by disclosures of annual interest rates even though such disclosures are not currently required for business loans under U.S. law. QuickFi underwrites based on national, third-party credit scoring systems, moving small business lending toward a fairer and more inclusive delivery model.

Transactions can be completed from anywhere on QuickFi’s patented, 100% digital, self-service mobile platform, which employs driver’s license authentication, facial recognition, artificial intelligence/machine learning, blockchain and other advanced technologies.

Now in its sixth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcased 39 winners, 350 finalists and more than 600 honorable mentions, with climate, social justice and AI and data among the most popular categories. A panel of Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 2,997 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, health, social justice and more. In addition, several new categories were added this year, including climate, nature, water and workplace.

Fast Company’s Summer 2022 issue (on newsstands May 10) will showcase some of the world’s most inventive entrepreneurs and companies tackling global challenges. The issue will highlight, among others, probiotics for coral reefs, easy-to-assemble kit homes for refugees or disaster survivors, a 3D-printed vaccine patch, an electric truck, a system to heat homes from the waste heat of a name-brand factory and prosecutor-initiated resentencing for overly long prison sentences.

“Small and medium size businesses (SMBs) drive the U.S. economy, and they must acquire new equipment to grow,” Bill Verhelle, CEO of QuickFi by Innovation Finance USA, said. “QuickFi partners with global manufacturers to offer SMB equipment buyers a transparent and efficient way to acquire the new equipment they need to grow. Lease or loan transactions that previously took days or weeks to complete can now be done in minutes on the borrower’s mobile device, 24/7, from anywhere.”

“We are consistently inspired by the novelty and creativity that people are applying to solve some of our society’s most pressing problems, from shelter to the climate crisis. Fast Company relishes its role in amplifying important, innovative work to address big challenges,” David Lidsky, interim editor-in-chief of Fast Company, said. “Our journalists have identified some of the most ingenious initiatives to launch since the start of 2021, which we hope will both have a meaningful impact and lead others to join in being part of the solution.”