Lending & Credit Risk Small Business Lending

From weeks to days: Bankers Trust fast tracks small business loans with Abrigo

Bank asset size

$7 Billion

Product

Small Business Lending

Results

3-5 day turnaround vs. 2 weeks

Since 1917, Bankers Trust has been a leading financial institution for commercial and consumer banking services. Headquartered in Des Moines, Iowa, it is the state’s largest privately held community bank, with $7 billion in assets. The bank has 12 branches serving Central Iowa and branches in Cedar Rapids, IA, Phoenix, AZ, and Omaha, NE. BTC Trust Company of South Dakota, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bankers Trust, is based in Sioux Falls, SD. Bankers Trust invests more than $1 million annually into the community, and Bankers Trust employees volunteer an average of 14,000 hours each year at nonprofit organizations. Visit the bank’s website at bankerstrust.com to learn more.

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"Our typical commercial loan process...was about a two-week process, on average. It’s now down to about a three-to five-day process, with our goal to get down to two.”

Darcy Johnson, VP Senior Product Manager, Bankers Trust

The challenge: A new approach to small business lending

Bankers Trust, the largest privately owned financial institution in Iowa, has a long history of strong credit quality and relationship-driven lending. When the bank evaluated how to support a new strategic priority aimed at growing small business lending, the need for a faster, scalable origination process became clear.

The bank’s small business lending initiative required transitioning new small business loans from a business-banking servicing model to one led by the consumer team in branches.

Solution: Thoughtful planning & implementation of Abrigo Small Business Lending

Bankers Trust learned about Abrigo’s small business lending solution early in the solution’s development. As lending program leaders considered their traditional credit administration, workflow, and decisioning tools for business loans and the new user-friendly, streamlined solution, they opted for the new technology.

“We decided to just take the jump,” said Darcy Johnson, VP, Senior Product Manager at the bank. Early adoption was outside Bankers Trust’s typical technology strategy, so leaders anticipated a learning curve. “It was new technology for Abrigo, and a new technology and process for us,” Johnson said. “So we planned for some bumps in the road.”

To minimize “bumps,” the Bankers Trust team approached the project in manageable stages. Abrigo Small Business Lending’s powerful decisioning engine enables straight-through automated loan origination and closing. But it has flexible automation flows to let lenders balance speed and control, and institutions can adopt the automation in stages.

"We decided to kind of view this as baby steps,” Johnson said. “Let’s automate the tasks that we can— credit pulls, KYB, maybe some of the documentation — and get some comfort with how it works. Then use that to scale up.”

Open communication with Abrigo’s product team helped move implementation forward throughout the process. “We got some great responses from the product team,” she said. “We were able to work through issues and get solutions.”

Results: Faster loan turnarounds

For the types of small business loans it processes in the solution, Bankers Trust has already seen significant time savings.

"Our typical commercial loan process for the size of deals we’re running through today was about a two-week process on average,” Johnson said. “It’s now down to about a three- to five-day process, with our goal to get down to two.”

A standout feature for Johnson is the system’s ability to automatically manage delays.

“There’s a timing button where you can put a timer into the process,” she said. “You can set it anywhere from a minute to two days to just delay or account for timing” of other processes in the workflow. “It’s my favorite feature.”

The automation promotes consistency in small business lending across branches and the entire bank. In addition, Bankers Trust has been able to incorporate third-party tools, such as Middesk for KYB and KYC compliance, to take some of the burden off admin staff.

Johnson expects Bankers Trust will automate even more small business lending processes through its partnership with Abrigo as it continues to scale its small business lending initiative.

“The technology is great,” she said. “It’s a new product, so it’s going to be getting even better, too.”