Executive Summary
The independent, credit-based equipment finance firm, Avtech Capital, an independent, credit-based equipment finance firm, sought to accelerate commercial underwriting while improving the completeness of background diligence. The previous approach — conducting checks post-approval with a legacy tool — was cumbersome, missed key items like judgments and lawsuits, and created back-and-forth that delayed funding. Avtech implemented Thomson Reuters Risk and Fraud Solutions — specifically CLEAR, CLEAR ID Confirm, CLEAR Risk Inform, and Batch Alerts. The result was a streamlined process that reduced diligence time by 75% per deal — 50% net time savings after doubling coverage — and enabled Avtech to resolve conditions pre-approval. The recommended operating model is to centralize comprehensive checks early in commercial underwriting, monitor funded deals with Batch Alerts, and continue exploring API integration to further compress cycle times. Avtech now moves faster, declines bad actors with confidence, and delivers better customer experience with fewer surprises and shorter time-to-funding.
The opportunity: Searching for a more streamlined, robust process
Dan Burris, Head of Portfolio, Risk Management, and Fraud, explained that before CLEAR, Avtech performed due diligence after approvals using another provider. The process “was cumbersome and it took a lot of time” so it wasn't feasible to run checks on all deals that came into commercial underwriting. Post-approval checks created rework and delayed funding. As Burris puts it, giving approval and later discovering conditions undermined the experience. The team's goal was a more comprehensive, earlier, and faster due diligence step that could scale to every deal and save them time.
Data completeness was another pain point. Burris notes the legacy tool “wasn't as comprehensive,” and occasionally missed judgments, lawsuits, and lacked negative news alerts, which he had to use Google searches for. In addition, “affiliations were a lot more robust and easier to connect and see in CLEAR than it was in our previous solution.”
The solution: Comprehensive, faster checks at the start of commercial underwriting
Avtech evaluated alternatives and selected Thomson Reuters CLEAR for its breadth and speed. Burris elaborated, “It’s more comprehensive, more streamlined. CLEAR gave us more information faster so we could do it on the other half of deals and address due diligence items prior to an approval.”
Today the team uses CLEAR ID Confirm, CLEAR Risk Inform, CLEAR business and person searches, and Batch Alerts. They particularly value the flexibility to configure reviews. Burris states, "We could set up our own scoring, and if there's nothing material there, then boom, we can sign off on it without having to review every individual report."
Under the new workflow, a deal comes into credit, passes an initial screening, and then commercial underwriting commences, as well as due diligence from CLEAR. Avtech runs CLEAR ID and CLEAR Risk Inform for all parties that are on the transaction and any owners that represent 20% or more. Material findings are extracted into a memo, sent to credit and Burris for review, and any conditions are added to the approval. Reports and backup are then compiled together and saved in the customer portal.
CLEAR closed the data gaps that slowed decisions. Burris highlights the additions — judgments and lawsuits surfaced reliably; affiliations became “a lot more robust and easier to connect and see”; negative news alerts eliminated manual Google steps; and “getting something that checks ID against all these different other bureaus, confirming if the ID and the information is accurate” delivered massive value.
Compared with the prior provider, CLEAR delivered “the best of both worlds” Avtech needed — more comprehensive and faster due diligence — allowing the team to expand coverage and accelerate cycle time while improving the customer experience.
The outcome: Faster funding, fewer surprises, and confident declines of bad actors
As Burris puts it, “CLEAR streamlined our process so that we could literally do double the work.” Quantitatively, the shift was decisive. "To utilize CLEAR compared to our other due diligence process, it took us 25% of the time.” Because Avtech expanded diligence to all deals, the team still saved 50% of the time net. As Burris summarizes, "If it took two hours to do something, I could get it all done in 30 minutes."
The biggest benefit to performing due diligence quicker is the reduction in timing related deal loss. Burris says, “The biggest success is that we've been able to eliminate the amount of deals that die before funding because we're not coming back to them with additional things and we've been able to shorten that timeline.”
Avtech now declines unsuitable applicants earlier — whether due to fraud risk or a pattern of misconduct. Burris shares a recent example. "We were good with the deal, but the due diligence on the guy is that he was just a bad actor. We have a policy here. We don't do business with bad actors. If it wasn't for the comprehensive amount of data that we initially got from CLEAR, we would have done the deal."
Burris says that it is Avtech’s mission to continue to stay current. Looking into the future the company is discussing an API connection to link Salesforce, where underwriting lives, and is considering CLEAR Adverse media and AI summaries at renewal.
