The Polish leasing market grew to PLN 119.5 billion in 2025. According to the ZPL, this represents an 8.1 per cent year-on-year increase. Small and medium-sized enterprises remain the main drivers of the market. They account for almost 71 per cent of financing.
In this environment, speed and convenience throughout the entire process are what give companies the edge. This covers the entire process, from the application, through scoring, to the decision and the contract. The problem is that in many companies, this process is handled by legacy systems. As a result, almost every step requires manual intervention.
There is, however, some good news. Digital transformation in the leasing sector does not require a complete overhaul of the core systems. It is usually sufficient to automate and integrate processes around the existing systems.
The market rewards speed, but processes can’t keep up
Changes in the law have made fully remote e-leasing possible, and customers – particularly those in the SME sector – expect a quick and hassle-free decision. Meanwhile, in many companies, the process still looks much the same: applications are received through various channels, data is manually entered into the system, scoring and decision-making are based on rules embedded in the old core system, and the contract is drawn up in a subsequent, separate step. Each such transition takes time, carries a risk of error and presents a point at which the customer might decide to withdraw.
Where does the leasing process most often hit a snag?
Bottlenecks occur in several places. Data entry – applications in various formats and via different channels, transcribed manually. Scoring and decision-making – business rules hard-coded into applications written in Delphi, VB6 or legacy Java EE, which are difficult to change and lack transparency. Documents and communication – updates circulating via email, telephone or instant messaging, with no single source of truth. Contract and onboarding – manual generation of documents and a lack of consistent case status. Each of these points on its own seems harmless, but together they prolong the time taken to reach a decision and increase the cost of processing.
Automation does not require the core to be replaced
A key shift in perspective: to digitize a process, you don’t need to replace the leasing engine. A process layer such as Flowee wraps around the existing system—it accepts applications digitally, guides the workflow through successive stages, integrates the steps, and monitors the status, leaving the core system exactly where it is. To dokładnie ta sama logika, co w modernizacji metodą strangler fig: obudowujemy stary system, zamiast go burzyć, i modernizujemy proces bez rewolucji.This is exactly the same logic as in the "strangler fig" modernization method: we wrap the old system in a new one instead of tearing it down, and we modernize the process without a revolution.
In practice, this means digital applications instead of paper, automatic data transfer instead of manual transcription, a single platform for documents and communication, and a consistent, transparent status from application to contract commencement.
Prerequisite – to understand the process and rules of the old system
However, there is one condition that’s easy to overlook. Decision rules—scoring, conditions, exceptions—are usually embedded right in the legacy core. To safely automate them and integrate them with the rest of the process, you first need to uncover them. This is achieved through process inventory using the Event Storming method and the reconstruction of system documentation (S*.doc). Without this, automation is done blindly, and any deviation from the “happy path” results in manual intervention.
What does a leasing company gain?
The result is a shorter time to decision, fewer errors arising from manual data entry, and a better customer experience – which, given the dominance of SMEs and growing competition, directly translates into higher application conversion rates. Added to this is scalability: the company can process more applications without a proportional increase in manual work. In a market that continues to grow faster than GDP, this is the difference between keeping pace with demand and losing it at the application stage.
