"Lending Software solutions delivers a new automated lending and credit decisioning platform to Places for People’s Financial Services."

Places for People is one of the largest property and leisure management, development and regeneration companies in the UK and owns or manages around 180,000 homes. It is made up of 20 different businesses, which includes its Financial Services company, and has assets in excess of £3.1 billion. Its products and services are socially and commercially driven. They are a business with a social as well as a commercial purpose, and corporate responsibility remains at the heart of what they do. As a not-for-dividend organisation, Places for People invests all its profit back into the business. This means it can sustain a wide range of activities that make a difference to people's lives. The Group believes in responsible business, and works hard to integrate responsible business principles into everything they do. Its Financial Services business works with housebuilders, social landlords and the wider consumer market, specialising in giving people access to responsible, equitable and often life-changing financial products and services. It focuses on helping those who may be financially excluded or unable to borrow from traditional lending streams... Read More

Origins
Since 2008 Lending Software Solutions (Laps-IT) had been offering automated lending and credit decisioning software in the online lending sector and were recognised as one of the leading providers. In 2015 Places for People Financial Services invited us to present our solution and proposals to them and after a review of many competitor platforms we were delighted when they commissioned our platform to be implemented in early 2016.

Requirements
Places for People Financial Services was operating a small but growing personal loans operation using a legacy software system and recognised that automation and clear underwriting and processing would be essential to cost effectively scale the business. As a lender with a strong social conscience and in order to give the fairest possible deal to their customers, their interest rates would be lower than the industry average so margins would be relatively tight. It was therefore necessary to have a loan management platform that would introduce considerable automation and intelligence so that staff recruitment could be kept to a minimum. The solution must also have a proven track record and pay close attention to security.

Approach
The Lending Software Solutions implementation team, headed by a client dedicated Project Manager, held several scoping and requirements gathering calls with the Financial Services operations team in order to fully understand what they were looking to achieve and within what timescale. This included extensive discussions about the desired automated credit risk engine rules, which 3rd party data services would be used, the loan model and the funding / collections practices. Based upon our extensive experience in the consumer lending space, Lending Software Solutions were able to make various recommendations to the client which addressed these areas. Rather than having to “reinvent the wheel” the client was then able to make modest amendments to our proposals, confident in the knowledge that they were following a largely tried and tested route.

Results
Places for People Financial Services successfully launched on time in early 2016 and have enjoyed solid performance and on-target triple-digit growth rates. By leveraging the system’s features which offer significant automation of credit decisioning and loan processing, they have been able to significantly increase business levels without increasing their head count. This has delivered a sustainable and scalable model that delivers the fairest lending rates to customers who in some cases may have resorted to borrowing from higher rate lenders.

Summary
The combination of highly automated decisioning and lending technology and our long industry experience delivered a highly satisfactory solution on budget and on time. The client has successfully migrated to our Laps platform with minimal business disruption and is enjoying the benefits of the decision taken to upgrade.

Places for People

"The best decision we have made in business to date is Laps-IT"

"XXXXXXX" Limited had reached its operational limits with its previous operating system (XXXXX XXXXX) and had to make the decision to change to a new software operating system. The Directors are active industry trade association board members and asked for feed back at various trade meetings. Laps-it was the company most trade members were talking positively about. We were delighted with the data transfer and implementation process and Laps-It has provided us with an excellent service which is tailored to the needs of our organisation. Laps-it have happily worked with us and have succeeded in creating a bespoke automated business model which is specific and relevant to the particular needs of our business.

Their IT development and back-up team has left us reassured that we can focus on our business knowing that Laps-it is looking after the day to day operating system. Their onsite individually tailored training and coaching was found to be extremely beneficial and we now have a reliable state of the art operating system and fully up scalable business model. The best decision we have made in business to date is Laps-It.

Payday Business Co-owner (South East England)

"The system has been online 99.99% of the time"

In September 2010 we were seeking a system for our online payday loan business "XXX X XXXXXXXXXX" in the UK. We looked at several systems and considered in house development decided on LAPS-IT. The system was implemented in January 2011 and has been running since then. Two Days training helped us understand all of the more intricate parts of the system but LAPS-IT also has an intuitive GUI making it simple to use. Introducing a new CSR (customer service representative) to the system is very easy and they are soon up and running. The few support issues we have encountered have been dealt with quickly and the system has been online 99.99% of the time.

New additions and customisations have been requested and delivered within the promised timescales. The continuous development, for example DAS, ensures the systems remains at the cutting edge of technology. We have been very satisfied with the system and service and look forward to a long association. LAPS-IT has worked very well for us where it matters, the bottom line.

Term Loan and Payday Lender Managing Director (North East England)

"An IT supplier that knows its core business"

"XXXXXXXX" launched lending in Australia in 2009 and adopted LAPS from the outset. Rather than choose a legacy lending system that we found were generally written for term loans / instalment loans, we wanted a system that was written specifically for Payday Loans, (although we are currently implementing a term loan upgrade from Laps-IT). We now have over 20 users covering applications, underwriting and collections - processing more than 15,000 applications a month. One of the key challenges in the Australian market sector is branding through a multi platform operation. Each Australian state has different credit rules and so we need to deliver on a state by state basis - brand, customer contract and customer service footprint. LAPS allows us to run concurrent brand platforms through a single customer service platform - so clients from "XXXXX" ,"XXXXXXXXXXX", "XXXXX XXXX") and "XX XXXX" (New Zealand) are all served centrally. We launched in New Zealand in 2011, another brand, another credit contract but this time with a different payments platform and collections processor. LAPS integrated with the relevant third parties and in a 90 day period we went from concept to launch. Our business continues to grow - we are planning to lend in Asia in 2012 - another set of challenges which I am confident that our Loan Management Systems provider LAPS will meet alongside our projects team. It's refreshing to see an IT supplier that knows what its core business is and embraces support of integration with other software suppliers. In summary, selecting LAPS was a great business decision for "XXXXXXXXX".

Payday and Term Lender CEO Perth Australia