New AI lending platform could boost approvals six-fold

After a year-long testing period, Global Capital Commercial has launched its artificial intelligence-powered lending platform designed to “streamline” the enquiry-to-settlement process for borrowers and brokers.

The platform, called Lenflo, provides borrowers access to more than 450 funding sources – including investment banks, private lenders, high net-worth investors, banks, and non-banks – with the capacity to manage $1 billion in settlements per month.

Speaking with Mortgage Business, Andrew West, national sales manager for property at Global Capital, said Lenflo pre-selects the most suitable loan products – whether they're commercial property loans, construction finance, residential loans, business loans, or equipment finance – based on the answers filled out in the borrower enquiry form, reducing the need to undertake a lengthy and “painstaking” research process.

“Commercial loans are much more complicated than residential loans, and Lenflo’s pricing engine has delivered indicative funding proposals with over 97 per cent accuracy in lender approval rating during its year-long testing period,” Global Capital’s announcement states.

“Commercial and private lenders typically do not have fixed pricing and instead offer risk-based guidelines on a deal-by-deal basis.” 

Mr West said that the whittled-down list of suitable products that Lenflo generates is then reviewed by internal staff and/or brokers – especially as there could be additional complexities that require consideration – to then identify the one that is the best fit, based on the borrower's needs.  

Once the borrower is content with the product selection, they are provided access to an online portal wherein they go through a guided loan application process, the national sales manager said. He added that the process has been designed so that borrowers only have to submit information once.

Further, he claimed that banks typically take weeks to review commercial loan applications, whereas through Lenflo, the review can be completed in one or two days.

Internal testing done by Global Capital, which was established in 2001 as a “broker-to-broker” business, suggests that commercial loan approvals could increase by 500 per cent, it said. 

According to the commercial lender – which has originated more than $10 billion in loans since 2001, with current monthly volumes over $300 million – Lenflo was developed after years of searching the market for similar platforms for staff to use. 

Global Capital realised there was an opportunity to make the platform available externally. 

“If we could find such a platform, we would have bought it – even at a six-figure sum,” Mr West said.

“Most of what we found were dated access databases that could not incorporate emerging technologies that integrate and streamline the enquiry-to-settlement process.”

The current plan is to keep the platform free for the first 12 months while the lender continues to make refinements.

[Related: ‘Collaboration’ key to seeing full potential of AI]