Easy Application Processes

Most lenders that classify themselves as fintech companies pride themselves on offering a hassle-free application process. Rather than filling out lengthy forms, meeting with loan officers, writing business plans or jumping through other hoops, borrowers simply complete the application process online. Technology makes the task of uploading documents and filling out applications easier, but it also changes how lenders review credit applications.

Alternative Process

Traditionally, lenders look at a borrower’s credit history as well as their income, job stability and other popular indicators of creditworthiness. This creates a relatively narrow picture of the borrower that is based on criteria created in large part by the three credit bureaus and the Fair Isaac Corporation, the entity behind the FICO score. Simply, if you have good credit history and adequate means to repay the loan, you’re likely to be approved, but if you’re missing these elements, you face rejection or high interest rates.

Fintech companies have subverted this process. Rather than relying on traditional models, lenders can harness the power of the Internet to collect multiple data points on each prospective borrower. For example, if you were applying for a revolving line of credit for your business, a lender will look at your sales, rating on seller sites like eBay, online reviews, your social media presence and multiple other data points. If you were applying for a car loan, an investor loan, a personal line of credit or multiple other types of loans, the lender would use data points that support that type of loan. Using this information, fintech lenders create a picture of you that differs from, and arguably surpasses, the one created by your credit reports.

Competitive Interest Rates

It’s critical to note that fintech lenders are not payday lenders. They do not offer predatory terms or high fees. In fact, their fees can be as low as 1 to 3% in many cases.

Fintech-focused lenders offer competitive rates, and they are able to do so because of the technology they have in place. As they create a picture of each borrower, fintech companies easily assess the likelihood that a borrower will repay a loan, and that makes it easier to match borrowers to underwriters who are willing to offer relatively low interest rates and fees. In fact, these competitive rates are saving many startups from crushing credit card debt by giving them access to relatively low-cost capital.

Cybersecurity

Of course, it’s not just about speedy applications and fast funding. To protect your safety, fintech companies have cybersecurity at the heart of what they do. They collect information from consumers so they can determine whether or not to approve their loans. However, they do not share this information, and whatever they store is carefully encrypted. In addition to using https and maintaining valid security certificates, reputable lenders use strong protocol version and cipher suites to secure their own sites.

Additionally, when they access information from third-party sites such as PayPal, Amazon and others, these lenders use tokens. That essentially means that the information is communicated between the two parties, but it never leaves the original site.

Multiple Options

Fintech companies don’t just focus on one type of loan. Some lenders offer factoring loans, inventory loans and business lines of credit, while others offer short-term loans for consumers. Still others focus on other niches in the lending market such as student loans. In particular, fintech companies match students to local banks, credit unions and other financial institutions that offer student loans. By utilizing technology to connect multiple borrowers and lenders, they allow students to find the cheapest interest rates possible, and they also help facilitate consolidation loans.

Fintech companies are changing how lending works, and as they increase their stake in the world of lending, their rates drop, their terms become more attractive and their application processes become easier. Ultimately, whether you need cash now or in the future, as lending changes, you are likely to be able to benefit from taking out a loan from a fintech company.

How Financial Technology Can Help You Get Money is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

Collation

You can produce the most efficient administrative processes, but if no one knows about them, then they may as well be useless. This is where collation is extremely important. Undergoing such a process also means you can take stock of what you currently do and will also allow you to see if there are any holes that need to be plugged. When you have finished this document, specialists in printing such as The Print Group can help you bind, print and present it to everyone who needs it, so you can give it to existing employees as well as those who may need to be trained later on. Click here to see what they can do for you.

Automatic Reminders

A lot of administrative process is lost because people simply forget to do particular jobs at designated times. It is only human for these kinds of things to slip our minds, so setting automated reminders, either on your phone, your tablet or your computer, can help give you the nudge that you might need to get things rolling.

Go Mobile

This is especially important if you have a lot of meetings outside of the office, and you need to be able to update and delegate jobs as you go. There are plenty of mobile applications available for this purpose, so try them all out and see which one is best for your business needs.

Digital Backup

Technology has opened up a new range of avenues to explore when it comes to dealing with administrative processes. Once upon a time, everything was done on paper, and if those pieces of paper disappeared, then they were gone for good. Luckily, the digital age not only allows you to speed up these sorts of processes, it also means you can back them up so you don’t need to be afraid of losing all your hard work. Invest in an external hard drive or software that automatically backs up your data so you are prepared for any situation that may arise.

Effective Communication

Communication is important in every business, and especially so when it comes to administration. If lines are crossed, important things may get left behind, and your business may suffer as a result. Effective communication will also make any changes easier to implement, ensuring a smoother process for all.

These are just some ways you might be able to make the administrative process easier in your business. Of course, every business has its own nuances, so make sure you introduce changes that match the needs of your business. Good luck!

How are the administration processes like in your business? What do you think you could do to make this part of your life a little bit easier? Leave your thoughts in the section down below.

5 Ways to Make Your Admin Process Easier is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

It can be a good sign when a CEO answers customers’ calls — it could mean he’s highly involved in the company. But looking back on it now, I see it as a possible sign that the company doesn’t have enough workers and that its gadgets aren’t worth hiring people to promote it. I wish I would have figured that out before I bought one of the devices at Ambient, only to see the company stop offering support for it less than three years later.

It was 2011 and I was doing research for a story I was writing about energy saving gadgets when I saw the wireless devices Ambient was selling. One was called an Energy Orb that changed color when your household energy use changed.

I called because I had some questions about its products, and was surprised when the CEO and co-founder answered. We talked for a bit, and I moved on with my story, eventually buying the Ambient Baseball ScoreCast for $43.82 on Amazon. About 2-1/2 years later, Ambient stopped supporting the device.

The ScoreCast was introduced in 2008 for $125, providing baseball scores through radio signals. A wireless plan isn’t needed.

My wife and I are big baseball fans, so I thought it would be fun to have the gadget on the fireplace mantle so we could see updated scores. Believe it or not, we didn’t have smartphones in 2011, so we didn’t have the immediate access that we now do on many devices in our home.

Just for the fun of it, I decided in early April to put four new AA batteries to see if it still worked. It didn’t. While $43 wasn’t much of a loss on something that worked for two baseball seasons, I wondered why it didn’t work and I again contacted customer service. Guess who got back to me? The same guy I talked to in 2011:

“On March 1, 2014, Ambient discontinued support for the Ambient Baseball, Ambient Football & Ambient Centerfield products. As of that date, customers with these devices in their homes stopped receiving game and standings data. The Ambient ScoreCast products were introduced in 2006 and manufacturing ceased in 2009. Sincerely, Pritesh Gandhi CEO | Ambient Devices”

I emailed him back, asking him what a consumer’s expectation should be when buying a tech device. I haven’t heard back yet.

How long should a gadget last?

Ambient’s pulling the plug got me wondering what consumers should expect when buying a tech gadget. Will the startup company that you were so fond of be around seven years from now when your device dies or needs tech support?

Is it just part of the expectation of a disposable society that when a relatively inexpensive gadget stops working, you’ll trade it in for a new one, recycle it, or worst-case, throw it away?

Or does the joy of helping a startup get going through a Kickstarter campaign outweigh any money you’ve spent on a product that doesn’t last long?

I’ve had a few experiences lately with startups and their gadgets. One worked out great with the Waka Waka solar lights working exactly as advertised. Another gadget, a portable WiFi device called Karma Go is still up in the air and delivery has been delayed a few times. I’m anxiously awaiting its arrival, and hope it will still be around in seven years.

The disposable phone

Like many people, I’ve owned way too many phones over the years. Each has lasted about two years before I’ve either upgraded to a new one while the old one was still working, or it died a slow death and I needed to buy a new one.

I’ve been happy with the iPhone 4 that I’ve had for about two years, but too many new apps don’t work on it, leaving me jonesing for an iPhone 6.

The high cost has put me off. As someone who likes to run things into the ground until they die — I owned a car for 23 years before buying a used car last year — I expect things to last. But with a smartphone, I’ve come around to accepting that updated software, if nothing else, will make the latest phone seem ancient in a few years.

A recycler’s view

Phil Gibbs, director of Pure Planet Recycling Limited, an electrical waste recycling in the United Kingdom, told me in an email that he thinks three to five years is a realistic expectation for consumers who want their tech gadgets to last or be supported.

“If tech was built to last, didn’t scratch easily or didn’t have the support on the device we wouldn’t be so inclined to upgrade or update our tech,” Gibbs says.

Shelf life differs among gadgets, with a phone, tablet or handheld gadget expected to last around three years, he estimates. That includes tech support. Buying from a known brand is key, Gibbs says, while a startup should have a lower price for its gadgets and a lower expectation.

“Home technology and gadgets seem to be made of less durable materials to keep manufacturing costs down,” he says. “This can be seen in the material value of equipment now when recycled versus older electrical components.”

An entrepreneur’s view

While every startup wants to be around decades, if not forever, longevity requires being profitable in a growing market, says Jackie Wu, a Northwestern University grad student who has a Kickstarter campaign for an indoor flying security camera he’s working on with others.

Without that growth, businesses can’t afford to support their products for years and years, Wu told me in a phone interview.

Early adopters of gadgets are willing to gamble and will support a flying smartcamera with a $200 purchase, Wu says, but others may want to wait until the product is more established. Drones are a growing field, he says, and the product, also called “Jackie,” should last years.

Wu doesn’t expect the Jackie to break often, though running it into walls too often could cause the weakest part — the propellers — to break. But those are inexpensive and easy to fix, so the company could mail replacements to customers to put back on themselves, he says. And because the camera syncs to a user’s phone, software updates will be sent through the phone — another inexpensive way to keep it running.

Any high costs for the business, however, could lead to problems if it isn’t growing fast enough. Wu’s company provides cloud storage for users, which gets expensive, he says.

Just like any other consumer, Wu, 24, knows first-hand how long tech gadgets last when compared to his expectations.

Wu says he buys a $500-$600 Android phone every year or so because they always break. It’s a frustrating purchase, even for a phone that is supposed to be a top-of-the-line product at the time of purchase.

“They make these things to fail in one to two years so you buy a new one,” Wu says.

Coming from a tech entrepreneur who wants consumers to buy his product and trust that it will be supported for years to come, it’s comforting to know that he’s seen both sides of the gadget life issue and will hopefully keep his customers in mind when making customer support decisions.

Why Your Gadgets Don’t Last is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

The answer was simple: I had gone over my monthly data allotment twice over.

I had a lot of data, and never even once came close to going over, so I knew there was an issue. I phoned Rogers and they sent me a log of all the data I had used each day for that billing period.

I know that I spend a lot of time on my phone, but even so, I was shocked by just how much.  I saw that even separate from the incident that resulted in my high bill (something uploading overnight), I use the data on my phone a disgusting amount.

I use data for a variety of different reasons: Google Maps, social media, email, and of course as a time killer. I have spent more time than I would like to admit browsing the  “What’s Hot” section on Buzzfeed.

What I didn’t realize until I got that report, was that I am usually using the data on my phone to obtain information that is of no use to me, and that does not align with my values.

At best, my cell phone data ads little benefit to my life. At worst, it’s a tool used for procrastination and the nursing of an unhealthy dose of “FOMO” (fear of missing out).

I found myself checking my Facebook when I was at dinner with a friend, reaching for my phone on date nights when I should have been focusing on J, and (in the interest of full disclosure) even checking my email at red lights.

As I sit down to write for Add Vodka, I find my thumb dragging the slider across the screen of my iPhone, a mindless reaction to a pause in my thoughts or a moment of difficulty articulating something.

I came to the realization that I was paying an extra $40 per month for something to distract me and fill my mind with clutter.

After coming to this realization, I pushed the glaring evidence out of my mind, and save for the occasional gut feeling that I needed to get rid of the damn data, I forgot about it.

I spent the next few weeks falling back into old bad behaviours, my phone always at my fingers, social media always at my beck and call.

A couple of weeks ago I sat there with my phone in my hand, scrolling through Twitter, annoyed at the lack of quality tweets of some of the people I follow. I switched to Facebook and became quickly annoyed with that, too. Then I realized: I wasn’t annoyed by the people I follow on either social media site. I was annoyed because Facebook and Twitter and 98% of the information gleaned from the apps on my phone and the data that I use is filling my brain with crap that I don’t need to know and never really wanted to know.

This useless information was nudging out the space for the stuff that I do want to know and learn, leaving little room for the information that I should be focusing on: information which will help propel me forward and on which I can take action. Information that will contribute to my living a positive, healthy life.

In short, having data on my phone was making my life worse, even marginally.

I try to run all of my decisions through this simple test:

“Will this decision improve my life, have a neutral effect, or make my life worse?”

And for me, inarguably, the empty information obtained through my phone and the distraction and procrastination it provided pushed the data plan into the “worse” category.

Data is not inherently evil, but I wasn’t using it in a positive way.

It’s hard to change a habit, so instead of trying to restrain myself from checking Twitter every half an hour, I decided to cancel my data plan on my phone.

I realize that it is fairly rare that a female member of the Generation Y population – especially a blogger – exist without a data plan on her phone, but I still have WiFi at home.

This is taking effect September 1, which is the beginning of the next billing cycle. It will be easy at first; I’ll be on my honeymoon until early-mid October, where I will have no use for data.

Where I think I’ll likely struggle is planning ahead. I rely on Google Maps to get me where I need to go, and I rely on my phone for price comparisons, coupons, and other things when I am out and about. In the end, that is a small hurdle to improve my life and a good habit to get into, regardless.

Information overload is a problem in our society and it leaves little room for making important decisions and important information. Instead of trying to beat the system and show some serious restraint, I’m cutting the source of much of it from my life.

(Shout out to Cait for her recent post about pushing past clutter and James Clear for his not so recent post about information overload for giving me that extra push to cut out the intellectual clutter)

Cutting Out Information Overload & Focusing On Things that Improve Your Life is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.

One such thing is payment methods.

Credit and debit cards have been around for decades. They weren’t as widely used before, but they were around, and other than the addition of some data chips, they use the same technology.

That technology is quickly becoming out-dated and irrelevant.

I remember saying to my friend, “I wish we could just scan our phones to pay for things”, as I dug for my credit card in my wallet. I have thought that often when I have forgotten my card at home, or the time my wallet was stolen.

Soon we will likely be able to use our phones as virtual wallets. Making payments with a phone isn’t something that is unlikely; in fact, some credit card companies are trying to transition into electronic payment methods, like American Express credit cards.

There will be some pros and cons of a mobile payment structure, such as the following:

Pros of Mobile Payments

Convenience

It will inevitably be super convenient to pay for goods and services with your phone. You won’t have to carry a whole bunch of cards around and, I don’t know about you, but my phone is always nearby. I have lost several debit cards over the past decade of having them, but never a phone.

Safety and Security

Many people may disagree, but I would say that having a mobile payment system instead of an actual plastic card would be far more secure. You can protect your phone with a password, and make it erase it’s memory after 10 failed attempts at guessing the password; while many cards do require a pin to use them, not all of them do, and online payments don’t. This leaves you vulnerable to fraud.

Cons of Mobile Payments

Smart Phones

It’s safe to say that the vast majority of the population of the developed world under the age of 60 has a smart phone, but there are still plenty of people who don’t have them, and they can be quite expensive. If you need a smart phone for mobile payments, it can deter those people that don’t have one.

Smart phones are expensive so it can increase the cost of consumerism substantially.

Battery Power

The most frustrating thing is when your phone dies in the middle of the day. I’ve been there. I imagine it would be far more frustrating if your phone died and your methods of payment died with it. I could just see myself stuck at the grocery store with a dead phone and no way of paying for groceries.

There are other big considerations when analyzing the feasibility and benefits of mobile payments, but I think it would be a step in the right direction for the credit card world.

The Strengths and Weaknesses of a Mobile Payment Structure is a post from: When Life Gives You Lemons. Did you like the post? Follow me on Twitter, like me on Facebook, or hop on over to my blog and leave me your feedback.