Lending

Consumers are booking rooms at levels not seen since early 2020 and loan delinquencies have fallen sharply as a result. Still, business travel remains sluggish and new COVID variants are spreading, threatening the hotel industry’s recovery.

Even as lockdowns ease, the trend toward remote work poses challenges for building owners and the banks that lend to them.

The end of the refinancing boom and impending rise in rates are not the only challenges lenders face. As one observer put it, they "can't make loans on homes that don't exist."

Home loans accounted for the bulk of the industry’s lending gains in 2020, but inventory shortages in some markets and an uneven economic recovery may dim prospects this year.

If you are underbanked you probably have limited access to mainstream financial services normally offered by retail banks. Many fintech startups offer alternative ways to measure credit risk, and assert that their products can help extend financial services to consumers who have not been well-served by traditional banks.

When both origination and forbearance demand spiked in the early weeks of COVID-19, quick thinking lenders were able to leverage their expertise and tech stacks to respond quickly.

The coronavirus pandemic has turned every industry on its head. For lending, it exposed the need for modernized, fully digital platforms.

Banks, lenders, and fintechs have been on a path toward digitizing the mortgage process from end-to-end — long before the term coronavirus entered our daily lexicon. How has the pandemic affected progress?

The industry says the 2017 cut in the corporate rate helped position lenders to support the economy when the pandemic hit. But a plan proposed by Democratic nominee Joe Biden could strain banks' capital investment and hiring, observers say.

The outbreak has completely upended whatever expectations the industry had heading into 2020. Here's key areas that have been shaped by the pandemic, some potentially forever.