Automate dealer and borrower underwriting. Hit your risk and yield targets.
Karus is not an alternative credit score. It is a programmable credit intelligence platform that gives each lender a holistic underwriting engine, customized to your dealer network, borrower mix, credit appetite, and yield target.
66% lower
Unit default rate vs manual underwriting in head-to-head
16 of 20
Monthly cohorts where Karus outperformed manual
+20 bps
Seasoned-cohort average NUY advantage at the same APR
Where the work gets hard
Your underwriting costs are fixed. Your dealer volume is not. Three operational pressures sit at the center of every booked loan:
01
Slow callbacks erode dealer relationships
Dealer acceptance goes to the lender that returns an attractive, loan-level price in seconds. Manual underwriting and rules-based pricing struggle to balance dealer, borrower, and asset factors in real time, and they add headcount as origination scales. Every slow or mispriced response trains a dealer to send the next deal somewhere else. The bottleneck does not just cost you one loan, it erodes the dealer relationships that feed your pipeline.
02
Credit-tier pricing leaves yield on the table
A FICO score is a snapshot. Pricing the same score the same way ignores the borrower's credit trajectory. Credit-tier pricing also lets bad loans through, because a static tier cannot predict the real risk inside each loan.
03
Performance volatility drives your cost of capital
Consistent loss performance drives your cost of capital. Two lenders with the same average performance can get materially different warehouse and securitization terms depending on how volatile their loss curves look to capital partners.
Expand your approval footprint without multiplying losses
Karus ran head to head against a lender's 15-person manual underwriting team across $80M in originations in 20 monthly cohorts on the same loan population. The platform underwrote borrowers with $1,354 lower average monthly income and still cut the default rate by two-thirds.
66% lower
Unit default rate vs manual underwriting (0.43% vs 1.24%)
16 of 20
Monthly cohorts where Karus outperformed manual on NUY
6× lower
Realized net charge-offs to date (0.07% vs 0.44%)
A weaker credit profile on paper, with better outcomes in the portfolio. That is the gap between scoring the borrower and scoring the loan.
Karus tunes every layer of the cash flow waterfall
Most credit intelligence tools improve one line of the cash flow waterfall. Karus improves all of them, starting with access to the loans worth approving and tuning every line to your specific yield target.
Conversion
Karus works with you to customize the strongest callbacks to match your dealers needs. Pricing aggressiveness, response time, and dealer mix tuned to your specific network.
Gross WAC
Trajectory pricing sets each loans rate against its actual risk at acquisition, not against a static credit tier. A stronger starting point on every loan, calibrated to your portfolios unlevered yield target.
Less Origination
Real-time API decisions and agentic callbacks replace manual review. Per-loan cost falls and headcount stays flat as origination scales.
Less Servicing
Better selection at origination means less servicing intervention downstream.
Less Losses
Loss timing curves catch bad loans before approval, not just low credit scores. Layer 2 customization sets your portfolio's specific loss threshold before any loan is booked.
Less Dealer Premium
Most lenders set dealer premiums by credit tier and overpay to win acceptance. Karus prices the dealer check individually for each loan, in real time, without sacrificing yield elsewhere in the cash flow waterfall.
Net Unlevered Yield
The portfolio yield target you set, delivered consistently month after month. The platform aligns all layers of the model to keep losses contained and dealer relationships strong.
What Karus delivers
Automation
Real-time API decisions and agentic callbacks close in seconds. Karus automates prime and near-prime by default, while routing scenarios you flag for manual review to a human.
Standardization
Every loan in your portfolio is underwritten to the same standard. Tested once at integration, applied consistently across every credit decision. The audit trail capital partners need to underwrite your performance.
Customization
Approve more deals without blowing up your portfolio. Layer 2 customization tunes the platform to your specific strategy for yield target, loss tolerance, dealer mix, and credit appetite, before any loan is booked.
Portfolio Performance
Lower delinquencies, lower defaults, predictable loss curves. The portfolio outcomes that capital partners reward with better terms and that compound into competitive advantage at scale.
Built to fit your pipeline, not replace it
01
Drops Right In
Karus is compatible with major loan origination systems and servicing platforms through API integrations and established partnership workflows. The platform layers into your existing pipeline rather than rebuilding it, so your dealers see no disruption to response times during rollout.
02
You Set the Rules
You choose where Karus runs in the decision flow: fully automated for the tiers you trust, with a human in the loop wherever you want one. Standardization and the audit trail come built in.
AI underwriting. Programmable credit strategy for auto finance.
Karus is not competing in the AI underwriting category. It is defining a new one: programmable credit strategy for auto finance. The result is portfolio economics built on loan access, accurate loan-level pricing, and consistent outcomes that competitors cannot easily replicate.
Generic AI underwriting
Borrower score
Programmable credit strategy
Programmable engine
See your portfolio run through Karus
Bring us a sample of your origination volume. We will run it through Karus and show you, loan by loan, where the platform would have approved differently, priced differently, or held back. No commitment to integrate. Just a side-by-side of your manual decisions and ours.