Mike Jones, President, Business Capital, CIT Group, discusses the value of ELFA membership and the evolution of equipment finance.

Financing Success 

On ELFA’s 60th anniversary, a 45-year ELFA member company
reflects on the past and looks to the future

THE YEAR 2021 marks ELFA’s 60th anniversary. We’re celebrating by taking a look back as well as forward, imagining what the future will hold. In this issue we talk to Mike Jones, President, Business Capital, CIT Group, which is celebrating 45 years as a member of ELFA. See the other Q&As in this series at www.elfaonline.org/milestone-interviews.









2021 marks CIT’s 45th year as an ELFA member. To what do you attribute the company’s longevity in the marketplace?

Since its founding more than a century ago, CIT has primarily been a commercial lender to the business community. Understanding and responding to the needs of small and mid-sized businesses is part of our DNA. This unrelenting focus has given us deep industry knowledge across a wide range of business verticals that many other banks and finance companies simply cannot match. In addition, we have developed strong and mutually beneficial relationships with key vendors and dealers that stretch over many decades. We’ve watched their businesses grow and have taken pride in playing our role to help finance that success. Together, this expertise and these relationships empower us to see trends coming and empower us with the agility to respond quickly, which helps give our clients a competitive edge. They appreciate and value that market understanding and it deepens our relationships even further.


Why is it important for your company to be a member of ELFA?

ELFA is a tremendous resource for us when it comes to marketplace insight and also for awareness and support on legislation affecting the equipment leasing and finance industry. Individual members are typically focused on running their own businesses to support their clients. ELFA does an excellent job of flagging trends and serving as an advocate for the industry as a whole. In addition, ELFA is extremely helpful in our ongoing efforts to educate our workforce and develop talent. Our employees regularly attend ELFA conferences and seminars and participate in discussions on equipment finance industry topics of interest. ELFA’s initiatives to promote career development for women, diverse talent and young talent have been especially effective and appreciated. And during this pandemic, ELFA’s forums have provided a vehicle for many employees working from home to engage with colleagues and peers. Overall, there’s really no substitute for the resources that ELFA provides for the entire equipment finance industry and that explains why we’ve been a member for nearly half a century and expect to continue that relationship for many years to come.

"The most significant change in equipment finance that I’ve witnessed over my career is the ongoing drive towards digitization.” 

The equipment finance industry is evolving. What are some ways you’ve seen the industry evolve over the course of your career? In what ways would you like to see or do you expect to see the industry evolve by ELFA’s 100th anniversary in 2061?

The most significant change in equipment finance that I’ve witnessed over my career is the ongoing drive towards digitization. We were once an industry that relied almost entirely on paper forms and manual processes. That has been changing for years and by now, I’m certain we are on a path to one day becoming entirely paperless as we explore new ways to work more efficiently and to serve customers more quickly and effectively.

The industry’s continuing digitization also promises to deliver important insights that will drive industry change over the long term. By leveraging intelligence that comes from analyzing many thousands—or even millions—of transactions, we’ll be able to better understand what works and what doesn’t in individual markets and for specific industries. Instead of using year-old data, we’ll be able to watch what’s unfolding in real-time. That will empower us to better understand how the market is evolving and make faster decisions to adjust in ways that will ultimately benefit our customers.