Small Business Lender fundivi Publishes Underwriting Criteria as Industry Faces Pressure for Greater Transparency

While banks and fintech apps compete on speed, fundivi is competing on a different question: how it can tell a business owner where they stand before they apply

BROOKLYN, NY, UNITED STATES, September 17, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- fundivi, a direct lender and hybrid funding platform, has published the specific criteria used in its small business underwriting process, a step that comes as the broader financial services industry continues to shift toward greater transparency in how products are priced and evaluated.

Consumer banking, investing, and insurance have each moved in recent years toward giving customers more visibility into pricing and qualification before a decision is made. Small business lending has historically lagged behind that shift, with many lenders treating underwriting standards as internal information not shared with applicants. fundivi's decision to publish its thresholds places the company within a smaller group of lenders taking a different approach.

Small business financing has traditionally involved a process in which an applicant submits documentation and waits, sometimes for days or weeks, before receiving a decision, with little visibility into which specific factors influenced the outcome. Industry data has periodically pointed to this lack of visibility as a source of frustration among small business owners, particularly those applying for financing for the first time or those who have been declined previously without a clear explanation.

fundivi built three free, publicly available tools tied to this approach: a self-underwriting engine, a funding product matcher, and a cost calculator. The underwriting engine evaluates seven factors, including revenue, cash flow, and time in business, against thresholds the company discloses directly, without requiring a credit pull. The product matcher asks a short series of questions and identifies which of fundivi's nine funding products may fit a business's specific need. The cost calculator converts factor-rate financing offers, a pricing format common in alternative lending but often difficult for business owners to interpret, into an annualized percentage rate for comparison against other financing options.

"Underwriting criteria have traditionally been treated as internal information," said a fundivi spokesperson. "We wanted business owners to be able to see where they stand before submitting a full application, rather than finding out only after the fact."

None of the three tools requires a credit inquiry, and the company states that no information entered into them is stored or transmitted. The tools are intended to function as a preliminary, informational step rather than a substitute for a full underwriting review, which the company says may consider additional factors not captured in the public versions of the tools.

fundivi operates on a hybrid model, combining direct funding with a network of lending partners. Under this structure, an application can be funded directly by fundivi or routed to a partner lender within its network, depending on which arrangement fits a business's profile. The company said this structure is intended to reduce the number of separate applications a business owner might otherwise need to submit across multiple lenders when seeking financing.

Financing products in this segment of the market are commonly priced using a factor rate rather than a conventional interest rate, a structure that expresses cost as a fixed multiplier rather than a percentage over time. Analysts who study small business lending have noted that this pricing format can make it difficult for business owners to compare offers from different lenders without converting each into a common, annualized figure. fundivi's cost calculator is designed to perform that conversion for a specific offer, regardless of which lender issued it.

According to the company, the team operating fundivi has been operating for more than seven years and reports having funded more than 3,000 businesses, with a current funding capacity exceeding $1 billion across products including working capital, business lines of credit, term loans, equipment financing, and other loan products. The company has also been recognized by Business Loans IQ, an independent review platform that rates business lenders.

Industry observers have noted a broader pattern of alternative lenders experimenting with published underwriting criteria and self-service qualification tools in recent years, part of a wider effort within financial services to reduce the information gap between lenders and the businesses seeking financing from them. This shift mirrors changes that have already taken place in other parts of consumer finance, where real-time account information and published pricing have become more common than they were a decade ago.

Whether this approach becomes standard practice across small business lending, or remains limited to a smaller set of lenders, is likely to depend in part on how consistently published estimates align with actual underwriting outcomes over time. Business owners and industry analysts alike have said that consistency between an initial estimate and a final underwriting decision will likely determine whether tools like these are viewed as genuinely useful or simply as a self prequalifying feature.

fundivi's underwriting engine, product matcher, and cost calculator are available on the company's website, fundivi.com.

About fundivi
fundivi is a direct lender and hybrid funding platform offering small and mid-sized businesses access to capital. Operating for more than seven years, fundivi has funded more than 3,000 businesses and maintains more than $1 billion in funding capacity across nine core products, including working capital, business lines of credit, term loans, equipment financing, and other loan products. fundivi combines direct funding with a network of vetted lending partners and evaluates applicants on revenue, cash flow, and overall business history in addition to credit score. fundivi is a BBB-accredited business.

Media Contact
fundivi Communications
press@fundivi.com
www.fundivi.com

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Steven Kay
fundivi
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