Auctions and proceedings
Software for auction portals, banks and credit servicers
An auction portal and a credit servicer work on the same assets and need different software. In the world of auctions and insolvency we have worked with both.
Who develops software for online auctions and insolvency?
dotenv, which in this world has worked with two auction portal operators and with a credit servicer. They are two kinds of buyer: those who run an auction portal and grow it as a product; and those who, like a bank or a credit servicer, have assets to sell inside proceedings with rules of their own.
Recurring problems in this sector
- For a portal: bids that arrive towards the closeIn a timed auction bids pile up in the last minutes, and in many sales every bid in that window moves the closing time. The portal has to carry the load right there, and show everyone the same state of the auction.
- For a portal: bidders have to be identified before they bidRegistration, ID, deposit: before the first bid there are required steps, and each one is a point where someone just starting out can stop.
- For a portal: lots with documents coming from different handsValuations, floor plans, photographs and sale notices are prepared by professionals, insolvency practitioners and banks, each in their own format. Whoever looks at a lot looks for them all in the same place.
- For a portal: reconstructing an auction once it is overWho bid, how much and at what time: after the award it may need to be shown, and the system has to have recorded it bid by bid.
- For a servicer: every proceeding has its own rules and datesAn asset that comes from a judicial liquidation, the old bankruptcy, or from an enforcement proceeding is sold under the rules of that proceeding. If an auction draws no bids, the delegated professional or the insolvency practitioner sets a new attempt, often at a lower price, and the lot has to be republished with the new data.
- For a servicer: knowing where every asset standsA bank or a servicer follows many assets, spread across different proceedings, each with its own dates, documents and sale attempts. If all of this sits in a spreadsheet, finding out where an asset stands means asking whoever follows it.
Who this page speaks to
To whoever runs an auction portal, which has a digital product of its own and watches its technology and growth; and to whoever runs operations at a bank or a credit servicer, which has assets to sell inside proceedings decided by others. They are two different readers, and in the problems above we say each time which of the two we are addressing.
In the first group are two auction portal operators, one of which handles judicial auctions; in the second, a credit servicer. One of them talked about online auctions and digital intermediation of movable and real-estate assets on Nessun Segnale, dotenv’s podcast: it is episode 10, released in October 2023, and can be heard on nessunsegnale.it.
The systems the software has to talk to
For a portal: registration and identification of bidders, deposit payments, the archives lots and documents come from, notifications to whoever has placed a bid. For a servicer: the systems that hold loans and collateral, the document archives of the proceedings, and the auction portals the assets go to when they are sold.
The new software is added to what is already there. On a portal that already has users one piece changes at a time, while the auctions carry on.
What to ask a supplier
The questions to ask any supplier, us included, before entrusting them with a portal or the assets of a proceeding:
- How does the portal hold up in the last minutes of an auction, and how have you tested it?
- Can an auction be reconstructed after it closes, bid by bid?
- Who sees the documents of a lot, and from when?
- What happens to an asset when the auction draws no bids and a new attempt is set?
- Which systems does the software have to talk to, and who keeps the data aligned?
It starts with a call, free of charge. Then a visit to your site, to see how you work today: for a portal, how a lot moves from publication to award; for a servicer, how an asset goes from the proceeding to the sale.
Then the scope, in phases, each with its own date and what it delivers: the first is the piece that today loses the most time or the most bidders.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between the software of an auction portal and that of a servicer?
- Who uses it. For a portal the software is what users see to take part in auctions; for a servicer it is an internal tool for following each asset through its proceeding to the sale.
- Can we start from the auction portal we already have?
- Yes. We work on the steps where time or bidders get lost, one phase at a time, and the rest keeps working as it is.
- Can the software follow proceedings with different rules?
- Yes, if each proceeding brings its rules into the software: who sets the dates, how a new sale attempt starts, which documents are needed. That way an auction with no bids becomes a new lot with the right data, without copying it by hand.
- How does it start?
- With a call or a video call, free of charge, and then a site visit. The scope is written after seeing how a lot or a case moves today.
- Who owns the code?
- You do: source code, documentation and environments belong to whoever paid for the work, and stay yours even if one day you change supplier.
Tell us about the project you have in mind.