TurnKey Lender’s Digital Lending In 2020, A Year In Review

2020 was defined by the COVID-19 pandemic. It demanded quick adaptation, empathy, and hard work. Here’s how the year unfolded for TurnKey Lender.

The Industry Context

Business technology that enabled remote work boomed during COVID and lending technology was no exception. As Elena Ionenko, co-founder and COO of TurnKey Lender, noted at the time: “In 2020, technology around end-to-end digitization went from something lenders were just starting to think about to something many now see as an immediate must-have. We’ve never had so many inbound queries.”

Lenders of all types, including traditional banks, retailers, medical practices, auto dealerships, equipment manufacturers, and P2P platforms, were forced to accelerate digital transformation programs in response to pandemic conditions. They were after tangible results like loan approvals in minutes, the ability to process millions of loans per day, better applicant conversion rates, better operational efficiency, and contactless end-to-end borrower experiences.

Awards & Recognition

• Winner – Singapore Business Review Technology Excellence Awards 2020, “FinTech – Banking”. TurnKey Lender’s Unified Lending Management solution, Banks edition featured fully custom configuration of business logic and decisioning without requiring code changes. It was recognized for its end-to-end modular lending automation for large-scale financial institutions. 
• Winner – Canadian Lenders Association 2020. The CLA commended TurnKey Lender for resilience in the face of adversity and innovation in a time of crisis, specifically recognizing the company’s work to ensure client success during the pandemic.
• Financial services consultancy Aite Group evaluated TurnKey Lender’s Unified Lending Management solution and awarded it the top prize in the Global Innovator category, with additional recognition in Client Strength and Product Features. Aite’s report stated: “Any lender getting established in the consumer loan market should consider TurnKey Lender’s ULM platform.”
• The Financial Technology Report recognized TurnKey Lender CEO and co-founder Dmytro Voronenko as one of the top fintech CEOs in the Asia-Pacific market.
• Global FinTech Series recognized TurnKey Lender co-founder Elena as one of the leading female opinion leaders in global fintech, alongside Carla Goshn (Visa), Peggy Alford (PayPal), and Diana Biggs (HSBC).
• Finalist – Credit Excellence Awards 2020. TurnKey Lender’s Unified Lending Management Solution was selected as a finalist for the 2020 Credit Excellence Awards, organized by CCR Interactive.
• Aite Group Retail Loan Origination System Matrix – Global Innovator Award 2020. TurnKey Lender was recognized as a leader in both Client Strength and Product Features, and received the Global Innovator Award. The report highlighted the platform’s flexibility, affordability, and rapid time-to-market. It also noted its strong fit for both emerging and established lenders seeking to manage the full loan lifecycle across consumer and commercial lending.
• Finalist – Credit Awards 2020, “Best Technology Provider in Credit Risk”. Shortlisted for TurnKey Lender’s AI-driven Decision Management System. It delivered 30-second automatic credit decisioning using proprietary self-learning machine learning algorithms and deep neural networks. 
• Finalist – Waters Technology Awards 2020, “Best Credit Risk Solution Provider”. Shortlisted by Waters Technology, a leading fintech news and analytics provider.
• Finalist – Computing Technology Product Awards 2020. Selected as a finalist in “Most Innovative Use of AI” and “Technology Innovator of the Year” by Computing.
• Finalist – Benzinga Global FinTech Awards 2020, “Best New Product”. TurnKey Lender’s SaaS for embedded end-to-end lending automation, was selected as a finalist and named a Benzinga Fintech Listmaker among 250 distinguished companies at the 6th Annual Benzinga Global FinTech Awards.
• Finalist – Lending Awards 2020, “Best Technology Partner”. Shortlisted by Credit Strategy for the third consecutive year at the Lending Awards, recognizing individuals, teams, and businesses across alternative lending, commercial finance, and mortgage industries.
• Forbes Feature – TurnKey Lender’s free personal loan module offer during the pandemic was featured by Forbes in its coverage of fintech firms supporting the financial sector during the COVID-19 crisis.

Product & Platform

TurnKey Lender v7.3 – TurnKey Lender shipped v7.3, a major release introducing fully operational retail financing out of the box, built-in vendor management for e-commerce financing, a full P2P module with investor portal, the Creditworthiness AI metric, automatic loan statement notifications, loan schedule history, and fee ranges.

COVID-Era Feature Update – a dedicated mid-year release addressed the structural changes the pandemic forced on lenders and borrowers, including AI-powered bank statement scoring, loan restructuring tools, business KPI dashboard, borrower geolocation tracking, AI-driven employee performance tracking, updated grace period and rollover functionality, customer rating system, full borrower portal API coverage, and a self-service loan migration tool.

PPP Automation Solution – TurnKey Lender deployed a dedicated Paycheck Protection Program solution. It was pre-configured to CARES Act requirements, deployable within one business day, with AI-driven pre-qualification in under two minutes.

Mobile App Update – the TurnKey Lender mobile app was updated to include face and document recognition as standard built-in features, with a streamlined four-step borrower registration flow and extensive AI-driven decisioning running in the background.

SOC 2 Type II Certification – TurnKey Lender has undergone an audit and received a SOC 2 Type II certification.

Events & Conferences

• ICBA Annual Conference, Orlando. TurnKey Lender exhibited its AI-powered Unified Lending Management Solution to community bankers at the ICBA Annual Conference.
• Money20/20 USA – RiseUp Event. TurnKey Lender’s Head of Marketing spoke at the RiseUp program at Money20/20 USA. 
• LendIt Fintech Virtual Conference.TurnKey Lender sponsored the LendIt Fintech virtual conference, connecting 1,500+ companies and 225 speakers from over 50 countries across banking, lending, digital finance, and embedded finance.
• ShopTalk 2020. TurnKey Lender participated in ShopTalk, the annual retail industry conference, showcasing its AI-powered Retail Finance solution and making the case for in-house lending as a profitable alternative to third-party point-of-sale financing.
• SFF X SWITCH 2020 – Singapore. TurnKey Lender participated in the world’s first week-long round-the-clock hybrid digital and physical fintech event, unifying the Singapore FinTech Festival and the Singapore Week of Innovation and Technology.

Final thoughts 

For TurnKey Lender, 2020 was about keeping the global credit industry afloat during the crisis. As Elena Ionenko summarized: “We’re most proud that we were able to support our clients in getting funding to individuals and enterprises in acute need this year.” The infrastructure, certifications, and platform capabilities built in 2020 set the foundation for the accelerated expansion that followed.