Mitsubishi HC Capital America’s Brian Rosa makes the case that the accelerating alliance between banks and independent lenders isn’t a market reaction — it’s the future.
For years, banks have pulled back from certain credit markets, tightened underwriting standards, and shifted their focus toward fee-based revenue rather than balance sheet growth. What’s received less attention is the structural opportunity that pullback has created — not just for independent lenders acting alone, but for a new model of collaboration between banks and independents that is quietly reshaping how capital flows through the market.
Brian Rosa has a front-row seat to this shift. As president of the asset finance solutions at Mitsubishi HC Capital America, one of North America’s largest independent equipment finance companies, he has spent years building and refining the types of bank–independent partnerships that are now proliferating across the industry. In a recent podcast conversation with Monitor and ABF Journal editor in chief Rita Garwood, Rosa made a compelling argument: this isn’t just a cyclical trend. It may be the beginning of a permanent new ecosystem for business capital.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen on Spotify.
Rita Garwood: You’ve said that while bank retrenchment is the known story, the collaboration between banks and independents is the real underreported dynamic. Why are these partnerships accelerating right now?
Brian Rosa: There have probably been upwards of 15 to 20 partnerships announced over the past couple of years, and I’m likely missing some. When you look at what’s driving it, it really comes down to the challenges both sides are facing. Banks are dealing with tighter regulation, tighter capital requirements, and a broader strategic shift toward asset-light models — fee generation versus putting lending products on the books. At the same time, they want to remain sticky with their customers. If there’s a segment of the credit market they can’t serve, customers start shopping elsewhere. So banks are increasingly looking to independents to fill that void. On the independent side, there’s a lot of dry powder that needs to be deployed. And many independents are smaller and don’t have the expansive business development networks that large banks do. Partnering gives them access to pre-screened deal flow and a much larger origination channel. The incentives align naturally because banks preserve relationships and reduce balance sheet exposure and independents get access to volume and existing customer relationships. It works for both sides.
Garwood: Is regulatory pressure — Basel III, specifically — the primary catalyst for this, or is something more fundamental going on?
Rosa: Regulation is definitely a catalyst, but I don’t think it’s the primary driver. The bigger shift is that many banks are genuinely repositioning themselves as relationship platforms and targeting fee generation rather than asset accumulation. That’s been a natural progression over the past five years. Regulatory changes have probably expedited it, but the underlying strategic direction was already there. There’s also been significant credit volatility in certain sectors over the past three to five years. Banks have stepped back and asked whether certain areas are truly core to their business. When they exit those areas, it creates a void that independents can fill. The regulatory environment has accelerated that process, but it was happening regardless.
Garwood: How do deals actually land on your desk through banking partners? What does that flow look like in practice?
Rosa: It varies, but when we’re seeing transactions come through banking partners, they’re often out-of-the-box deals that the bank isn’t comfortable doing. It could be non-standard collateral, a more customized amortization profile, a unique credit profile, or asset-heavy structures that can’t get approved internally. We have one banking partner, for example, that isn’t comfortable taking residual risk on operating leases and that’s one of our focus areas. So we handle all of their fair market value and operating lease products. Once a deal comes in, our business development team works very closely with the bank’s relationship managers throughout the entire selling process. The critical thing is that we maintain one cohesive face to the customer. The bank is the anchor to that relationship, and we know our role. We leverage whatever underwriting the bank has already done, bring it into our deal team, and run it through our normal process while making sure the customer is getting a good, consistent experience.
Garwood: You’ve talked about evolving from a pure lender to a full lifecycle asset management provider. What does that look like, and why does it matter for banks?
Rosa: Our objective is to be more than just a capital source. Over the next few years, our main focus is expanding into the full lifecycle of asset ownership — not just financing, but remarketing, valuation, and end-of-life asset management. For banks, that creates real value. We’ve entered into an exclusive partnership with a transportation and construction dealer that allows us to value assets more accurately during underwriting, and take equipment back and sell it through auction and direct sales channels at end of lease. Some banks actually come to us as clients through our remarketing division because they have transportation and construction exposure and need help monetizing equipment coming off lease. It puts us in a unique position among independents because we can offer banks something that a pure lender can’t.
Garwood: The AI and data center buildout represents massive capital needs. Are banks looking to partners like MHCA to share the risk and provide specialized underwriting in that space?
Rosa: Absolutely. The capital needs in AI and data center construction are enormous, and the dynamic is constantly evolving. There are a huge number of projects in progress right now, and banks are actively looking for risk-sharing partners. We’ve spent three years building dedicated expertise in this space so that we can participate meaningfully. What’s interesting is that our value isn’t just on the project finance and construction side. These AI companies have massive, specialized equipment needs such as large-scale compute infrastructure, for example — and they span the full credit spectrum, from investment-grade enterprises down to early-stage startups. They’re all competing for capital right now. We’re able to provide solutions across that range, and it’s an area where bank–independent collaboration is happening in a real and significant way.
Garwood: Referral partnerships always raise concerns about the borrower experience — the handoff. How do you ensure customers aren’t feeling passed between institutions?
Rosa: Customer experience is the foundation. If it breaks down, the partnership doesn’t work. We’re very sensitive to the fact that this is ultimately a banking relationship and we’re one part of the machine, and we have to execute seamlessly. We operate across both big-ticket and small-ticket or flow markets, and the approach is different for each. On the big-ticket side, which includes transactions from $3M to $50M+, we work closely with the bank’s relationship manager up front to establish what our risk parameters are, how our underwriting works, what documentation looks like. The last thing we want is for a relationship manager to overpromise to a customer on a deal we ultimately can’t complete. Everyone looks bad, and it puts the bank’s broader relationship at risk. On the small-ticket and flow side, which is more systems-driven and automated, we have more direct customer interface. There, it’s about getting the bank comfortable with our process, including underwriting, documentation, customer service, funding, so there are no surprises. In both segments, proactive collaboration between both teams has been the key to success.
Garwood: You’ve mentioned telematics and data analytics reshaping underwriting. Are your banking partners starting to leverage that data?
Rosa: I wish I could say it was happening at scale, but we’re still in the early stages. Everyone recognizes the value of the usage data we can extract through telematics and other sources. The challenge for banks is that their regulatory requirements and operational constraints make it difficult to adopt new data sources quickly. But I do think that within the next three to five years, banks are going to be looking much more seriously at the data coming through our leases and loans to drive underwriting decisions and risk modeling. The potential is real, it’s just a matter of building the infrastructure and frameworks to use it.
Garwood: Is this partnership model a temporary response to market conditions, or do you see it as a permanent new structure?
Rosa: Time will tell and honestly, we have a biased view because we think it’s an extremely efficient way to approach the market. When banks and independents collaborate well, customers get a more seamless experience and more certainty that financing will be available regardless of economic conditions. That’s genuinely valuable, and I think especially true on the small-ticket side where the speed and flexibility customers expect is difficult for banks to deliver alone. If you look at the long-term trends like capital costs, regulation, and borrower expectations, there’s a strong argument that some version of this becomes permanent. But the outcomes will vary. Some of the partnerships that have been announced will work, some won’t. The ones that invest in genuine collaboration at the beginning with shared goals of aligned messaging to customers, strong relationships between business development teams, and clear roles — those are the ones that have the best chance of lasting.
Garwood: What’s the biggest misconception traditional bankers have about partnering with independent lenders?
Rosa: The most common one is viewing us as competitors rather than complements. It’s a natural instinct because we offer similar products and we’re in the same credit markets. But if the partnership is structured well, we’re the reason the bank keeps its customer, not the reason it loses them. Getting to that understanding requires real collaboration at the relationship management level, early and consistently. The second misconception is about sophistication. Some banks look at a smaller independent and assume there’s a capability gap and that we don’t have the underwriting depth or the operational infrastructure to execute on complex deals. In the sectors we focus on, that’s simply not true. And I’d say our track record demonstrates that. The third is fear of relationship dilution — that adding a third party makes everything more complex and puts the bank’s relationship at risk. In practice, when both sides are aligned from the beginning and the customer gets a seamless experience, that fear goes away. The complexity is manageable. The collaboration is what protects the relationship.
Garwood: If you had to pick one sector where banks and independents will collaborate most intensively in the next 12 months, what would it be?
Rosa: I’m going to cheat and give you two. First is AI and data centers. Really, technology infrastructure broadly. The capital needs are massive, the obligor universe spans from investment grade to early-stage startups, and everyone is still figuring out who the winners and losers are. That uncertainty is driving a lot of credit decisions in the market right now. There are deals that banks can do that we can’t, and deals that we can do that banks can’t. That dynamic is going to continue for at least the next 12 to 24 months, and probably well beyond.
Second is robotics and automation in manufacturing and warehouse logistics. This is an area we know extremely well through our industrial group. The scale of investment happening right now in these facilities is significant, and these aren’t simple installations. They’re complex, multi-vendor integrations involving multiple OEMs, service providers, and integrators. We have deep experience working with integrators to develop comprehensive financial solutions for customers. Banks are coming to us on these deals because they understand the customer, but they don’t always understand the asset or the install project. We’ve been able to consult them and help their customers. The opportunity there is substantial.