Loan Approval Workflow

Faster Decisions for CreditNinja

Client: CreditNinja
Industry: Consumer Lending / FinTech
Service: Third-Party Integration Engineering|AWS Lambda + Chalice|Python Multithreaded Decisioning|CI-Ready Test Engineering

Overview

CreditNinja is a fast-growing web lending and approval application. It uses a loan-approval workflow to facilitate transactions for all parties.

A number of third-party services needed to be efficiently integrated in order to fetch and store the data required for the credit-decisioning process — without slowing the loan-approval workflow that CreditNinja’s customers depend on.

How We Solved It

Sphere built the integration layer as a fleet of Python 3.6 AWS Lambda functions, deployed with the Chalice framework. The decisioning service used Python’s built-in multithreading to call those functions in parallel, so data from third parties was available faster than a sequential pipeline could deliver. The codebase was kept lightweight by leaning on built-in packages, and shipped CI-ready with 95–100% test coverage.

1. AWS Lambda Functions in Python
Each third-party integration was isolated as its own Lambda function in Python 3.6. The model lets each integration scale and fail independently — a slow vendor never holds up the rest of the workflow.
2. Chalice for Versioned, Zero-Time Deployments
The Chalice framework gave us versioned, zero-time deployments and clean dependency packaging — turning operational risk into a non-event when functions need to roll forward or roll back.
3. Multithreaded Decisioning Service
A central decisioning service calls the integration functions in parallel using Python’s built-in multithreading package. Data arrives faster, decisions go out sooner, and the customer waits less.

Key Outcomes

95–100% Test Coverage

CI-ready code with 95–100% test coverage made the integration layer materially more reliable than what it replaced.

Improved Decision Model

Sphere’s integrations let CreditNinja improve its decision model — untrusted customers are filtered out earlier in the application flow.

Significant Financial Savings

Catching higher-risk applications early translated into real financial savings and a meaningful drop in default-driven losses.

Faster, Lighter Deployments

Built-in package usage kept the codebase lightweight, so deployments are quick and on-call maintenance stays painless.

The Results

Sphere’s integrations let CreditNinja improve their decision model — significant financial savings and risk reduction, because untrusted customers are filtered out early in the application stages. The reliability of the system also went up materially, thanks to disciplined test coverage and a deployment story built for speed and safety.

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Hear from

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Hear from our clients

Lee Ebreo

VP of Engineering at Credit Ninja

These things would not have been achievable if we did not build our own in-house system and if we did not partner with Sphere to help us achieve our goals.

Selah Ben-Haim

VP of Engineering at Prominence Advisors

Our experience with Sphere and their team has been and continues to be fantastic. We keep throwing new projects at them, and they keep knocking them out of the park (including the rescue of a project that was previously bungled by another vendor).

Ben Crawford

Senior Product Manager at Enova Financial

I would expect to be delighted. It's been a really positive experience, working with Sphere, and I would expect you to have the same.

Mark Friedgan

CEO at CreditNinja

Sphere consistently prioritizes the needs of their clients, demonstrating both agility and teamwork. As an offshore team, they have been an integral part of our organization and we plan to continue growing with them.

René Pfitzner

Co-Founder at Experify

Sphere provided excellent full-stack development manpower to augment our team and help push our product forward. They are easy to work with, tech-savvy and proactive.

Bruce Burdick

Chief Information Officer at Integra Credit

We've been working with Sphere and its excellent consultants since our founding. I've found that they are true partners in the success of our business.

Jemal Swoboda

CEO at Dabble

The resources and developers that Sphere Software provides are skilled and have the required technical expertise, but more importantly, they have helped us build a culture of excellence within our team.

Arthur Tretyak

Founder and CEO at IntegraCredit

With Sphere, we were able to migrate in half the time it would take to train an additional FTE… and for a fraction of the cost. Our experience with Sphere has been exceptional.

Lee Ebreo

VP of Engineering at Credit Ninja

These things would not have been achievable if we did not build our own in-house system and if we did not partner with Sphere to help us achieve our goals.

Selah Ben-Haim

VP of Engineering at Prominence Advisors