Javelin’s Digital Lending practice spotlighted three trends for 2023 that will upend the digital lending community. People, new products, and different kinds of partners are the common threads. From pandemic to paradox, 2022 saw mortgage originations collapse, major auto lending shares shift, personal loans boom, buy now, pay later (BNPL) appear everywhere, and fintechs fight to stay on top. You ain’t seen nothing yet.

It’s beginning to look a lot like 2007. Most lenders, banks and non-banks, are reacting the same way the industry behaved in 2007: looking to subprime and near prime, ramping up debt consolidation offers, and laying off staffers. 2023 marks the start of a greater transformation than the fintech lending takeover that escalated from 2008. Consumers’ primary and favored digital lenders in five to seven years are unlikely to be financial “institutions” or fin-anythings. Vendors serving the lending industry need to get ready to serve a new type of client.

Lending fintechs aren’t faster or better anymore. Investors are stingier. Mortgage fintech layoffs are mirroring those of big banks. Auto financing fintechs are battling credit unions as their biggest competitors. Personal loan fintechs are struggling to find the next big idea to fend off copycats. It’s time for big banks to claim their space. Radical innovation, out-of-the-financial-industry-box thinking, and new types of partnerships will rule. Get there first.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you have a whiz-bang loan application and approval process but creditworthy consumers aren’t applying, are you celebrating? The lack of unique consumer offerings, are the root of market share gripes. In 2023, the lending industry will shift its focus from processes and prices to people and products that promise a greater share of the market. Finding customers, and more important, having consumers find you, will be the top priority of CEOs and executives in digital lending, as digital improvement tweaks and platforms for process and speed fade in importance.