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‍The Fintech 50: Vendors Supporting the Top Trends in Commercial Banking and Payments

Banks must stop playing defense and proactively modernize their operations to remain relevant in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Enterprises of every size are increasingly accessing financial services outside of their bank, eroding revenue and client relationships for financial institutions (FIs). To combat worsening disintermediation across all commercial banking segments, FIs need to accelerate modernization efforts. Fintech partnerships are often the fastest way for FIs to achieve this objective. This report provides an overview of 50 fintech solution providers across critical areas of credit and noncredit revenue that offer viable partnership opportunities for FIs to accelerate modernization and innovation in commercial banking and payment

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Datos Insights on CovenantIQ

Overview

CovenantIQ automates cash flow-based middle market loan and covenant monitoring for banks and private credit funds to address inefficiencies in middle market lending processes. The platform leverages Al to parse credit agreements, extract covenant definitions, and automatically calculate financial covenants and KPls, reducing turnaround times to real-time insights through automated workflows and analysis. CovenantIQ tackles one of the most operationally intensive aspects of middle market lending to enable scaling and retention of borrowers.

Why CIQ Is Important for Middle Market Lending

The platform addresses business challenges including rising servicing costs, delayed risk recognition, and the inability to scale monitoring operations proportionally with loan portfolio growth. CovenantiQ standardizes borrower financial data through a proprietary taxonomy and automates covenant calculations across portfolios reducing back-office operational burden. The solution is a compelling use case for embedded lending since it creates standardized data-sharing protocols between banks and borrowers through its streamlined attestation process and API-first architecture.

CovenantIQ Unlocks a $3.4 Trillion Market for Cash Flow-Based Loans to the Middle Market

Private Credit Funds Are Not Built to Scale

• Limited resources to efficiently serve a high volume of businesses with smaller loan sizes
• Often rely on PE sponsors for deal sourcing and primary due diligence

Commercial Banks Struggle with Bespoke Loans 

• Strong relationships with middle-market companies, but lack expertise to underwrite & manage cash flow-based loans
• Limited liquidity and high-cost of holding loans on bank’s balance sheet

Middle Market Companies Lack a Standard Financial Reporting Framework

• Inconsistent financial reporting drives up underwriting & monitoring costs
• More time spent assembling information than identifying and mitigating risk

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Financial Performance, Covenant Compliance, and Key Metrics in One Place

• Standardized borrower financials leveraging a structured data model and well-defined taxonomy
• Shared view of financial performance and loan covenant compliance
• Real-time insights into key financial indicators for proactive risk management

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