Latest / Leaders in Lending / Small Steps, Big Gains: Scaling Success with AI in Credit Unions in 2024
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: You're listening to Leaders in Lending from Upstart, a podcast
- 0:06Speaker 1: dedicated to helping consumer lenders grow their programs and improve
- 0:10Speaker 1: their product offerings. Each week, here, decision makers in the
- 0:14Speaker 1: finance industry offer insights into the future of the lending industry,
- 0:18Speaker 1: best practices around digital transformation, and more. Let's get into
- 0:22Speaker 1: the show.
- 0:26Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Leaders in Lending. I'm your host,
- 0:29Speaker 2: Drew Megory, and this week's episode is a special reairing
- 0:31Speaker 2: of a conversation originally featured on America's Credit Unions podcast,
- 0:35Speaker 2: The SeeU Lab, where Barry Roach and I dive into
- 0:38Speaker 2: how credit unions can win. In twenty twenty four, we
- 0:40Speaker 2: talk about how AI and fintech partnerships can help institutions
- 0:44Speaker 2: tackle challenges such as liquidity constraints and keeping up with
- 0:47Speaker 2: ongoing regulatory hurdles, to name a few. With that said,
- 0:50Speaker 2: I hope you enjoy this week's show.
- 0:54Speaker 3: Hello, and thank you for joining us for another episode
- 0:56Speaker 3: of the CEU Lab. I'm modeling Crownfeld with America's Credit
- 0:59Speaker 3: Union and I'll be your moderator.
- 1:01Speaker 4: Today.
- 1:02Speaker 3: I'm sitting down with Barry Roach and Drew Magrie, senior
- 1:04Speaker 3: account managers at Upstart, and we're going to discuss how
- 1:08Speaker 3: credit unions can win in twenty twenty four. Barry Drew,
- 1:11Speaker 3: it's great speaking with you, and thank you so much
- 1:13Speaker 3: for joining us today.
- 1:15Speaker 4: Thanks having to me, great to be here. Great.
- 1:17Speaker 3: Well, let's start with just a little more information about
- 1:20Speaker 3: your roles at Upstart.
- 1:22Speaker 4: Thanks Malan. I'm Barry Roach. I'm a senior account manager
- 1:24Speaker 4: here at Upstart. I've been with uptur for about eighteen months,
- 1:27Speaker 4: but prior to my time with Upstart, I was CEO
- 1:30Speaker 4: of two different credit unis in California for about ten
- 1:33Speaker 4: years and have about twenty years total in the credit
- 1:36Speaker 4: union industry. So very familiar with the challenges that we
- 1:39Speaker 4: have in credit unis and happy to be here to
- 1:41Speaker 4: talk about that a little bit today. True.
- 1:44Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Barry. So I've been with Upstart, coming up
- 1:47Speaker 2: on almost three years now, but prior to Upstart, I
- 1:49Speaker 2: started my career in the financial service industry about fifteen
- 1:53Speaker 2: sixteen years or so, where I actually started in the
- 1:56Speaker 2: insurance business and then quickly transitioned into the regional banks
- 2:00Speaker 2: where I worked in multiple areas that pertain to consumer
- 2:03Speaker 2: lending in some form of a capacity. After about five
- 2:06Speaker 2: or six years of doing that regional bank space thing,
- 2:10Speaker 2: I wanted to get out and about and check out
- 2:12Speaker 2: this credit union space that I heard so much about.
- 2:14Speaker 2: And I was fortunate enough to lead the Ohio Teamsters
- 2:17Speaker 2: credit Union for just shy of nine years as president
- 2:19Speaker 2: and CEO before coming to Upstart to help build up
- 2:23Speaker 2: the account management team's focus in partnering with credit unions.
- 2:27Speaker 2: Going back to your initial ask of what does the
- 2:29Speaker 2: account management function entail here at Upstart is we do
- 2:33Speaker 2: have a dedicated team made up of prior executives both
- 2:36Speaker 2: in credit unions and in banks, and you can kind
- 2:39Speaker 2: of think of as our function as like an ongoing
- 2:41Speaker 2: post sales support as this is not, of course the
- 2:44Speaker 2: setate and forget a business. And what we really strive
- 2:47Speaker 2: to do is own the executive relationship with our partners
- 2:50Speaker 2: and almost act as if we're an extension of their
- 2:53Speaker 2: organization to give this more of a partnership feel rather
- 2:56Speaker 2: than just another vendor type of feel. And where this
- 2:59Speaker 2: helps is because of course, to what Barry and I
- 3:01Speaker 2: have already talked about as we've sat in those chairs
- 3:04Speaker 2: and we have done the work of the people that
- 3:06Speaker 2: we work with on a day over day basis, and
- 3:08Speaker 2: this helps because our team is able to provide positive
- 3:11Speaker 2: insights to their programs to assist in meeting strategic goals
- 3:15Speaker 2: and objectives as part of our partnership. But they can
- 3:17Speaker 2: also leverage our partnership to augment other key initiatives within
- 3:21Speaker 2: their organization that they may be trying to fulfill as
- 3:24Speaker 2: part of their business plans throughout the current state and
- 3:27Speaker 2: in future years ahead.
- 3:29Speaker 3: Great well as past credit union CEOs, you both have
- 3:32Speaker 3: a very unique perspective on this, So could you speak
- 3:35Speaker 3: about some of the challenges that credit unions are facing
- 3:38Speaker 3: in today's environment?
- 3:39Speaker 4: Sure, thank you, Madlin, So Drew and I speak to
- 3:42Speaker 4: executives from across the country on a daily basis, and
- 3:46Speaker 4: for the most part, there are less regional differences in
- 3:49Speaker 4: terms of the challenges than there are sort of right
- 3:52Speaker 4: across the country. Everyone has liquidity concerns, certainly maybe not
- 3:57Speaker 4: as bad today as it was in early twenty twenty three.
- 4:01Speaker 4: We're hearing less and less about concerns about liquidity and
- 4:04Speaker 4: more about as the positive come back, as investments have
- 4:09Speaker 4: run off and now looking for reinvestment opportunities, where's a
- 4:12Speaker 4: good place to put that money you hold it or
- 4:15Speaker 4: do you invest it in sort of higher yielding assets
- 4:18Speaker 4: right now? And I mean we've seen in the learning
- 4:20Speaker 4: space now yields as high as they've been in since
- 4:24Speaker 4: before the Great Financial Crisis. So with that, that's great
- 4:28Speaker 4: learn income coming in. Well, what about credit quality, because
- 4:31Speaker 4: we have seen sort across the country certain degradation in
- 4:35Speaker 4: credit really in all astic life and across the spectrum
- 4:39Speaker 4: of risk, though not just subprime performing or underperforming as
- 4:43Speaker 4: big maybe, but also for the prime space. We've seen
- 4:47Speaker 4: through data from our partnership trained being, for example, a
- 4:50Speaker 4: little bit of stress for all borrowards out there right
- 4:54Speaker 4: now through anything you could add from what I've heard
- 4:57Speaker 4: from some of my lending departments.
- 4:58Speaker 2: Yeah, one thing to kind of touch off that whole
- 5:00Speaker 2: credit risk and defaults rising, right, everybody knows that the
- 5:04Speaker 2: personal savings rate continues to drop, defaults trying to rise
- 5:07Speaker 2: across all asset classes. And we have this new thing
- 5:10Speaker 2: as of December called CECIL and how to manage those
- 5:12Speaker 2: methodologies at a really odd time, right, so being able
- 5:17Speaker 2: to predict risk and look at what those ongoing trends
- 5:21Speaker 2: are across all assets in comparison to what the defaults
- 5:25Speaker 2: are doing I've heard a lot of chatter around the
- 5:28Speaker 2: challenge of how to formulate an accurate cecil methodology, and
- 5:33Speaker 2: as a result, informing those methodologies, it's taken a hit
- 5:36Speaker 2: to some credit unions across the country from a net
- 5:38Speaker 2: income perspective. So that's another one that I'll add around
- 5:41Speaker 2: around credit risk for sure.
- 5:43Speaker 4: And of course there's always the competitive risk, right, so
- 5:47Speaker 4: all credit nis are trying to remain viable for their
- 5:50Speaker 4: membership and to attract new members as well, and so
- 5:52Speaker 4: you have to have nowadays not just a great brand
- 5:56Speaker 4: footprint and a great experience when members are walking into branches,
- 5:59Speaker 4: but digital footprint is very important as well in that
- 6:02Speaker 4: digital experience. So, especially through Upstart, a lot of what
- 6:05Speaker 4: we do is to help introduce those brand new borders
- 6:10Speaker 4: who are now becoming members of credit unis with a nice,
- 6:13Speaker 4: elegant digital experience when it first applied for loans through
- 6:17Speaker 4: the Upstart platform. So that's just one example of those
- 6:20Speaker 4: competitive stresses. But also now AI AI has become this
- 6:25Speaker 4: new buzzword and now you know, boards are saying, well,
- 6:28Speaker 4: tell me about your AI strategy. It's like, well, what
- 6:31Speaker 4: is AI? You know, we have a lot of crediting
- 6:34Speaker 4: executives are struggling with perhaps understanding not only what AI is,
- 6:39Speaker 4: but not necessarily understanding how AI can help their business
- 6:43Speaker 4: and help move their crediting forward in terms of a
- 6:46Speaker 4: much better value proposition for their membership. One thing up
- 6:50Speaker 4: there does do around AI is that is key in
- 6:53Speaker 4: how we perform our underwritings. So we've been using our
- 6:57Speaker 4: digital intelligence machine learning for years now and with AI
- 7:01Speaker 4: and with training data, the more data and the more
- 7:04Speaker 4: time you have, the more accurate both predictions can be.
- 7:08Speaker 4: So both Drew and I have found I think that
- 7:10Speaker 4: just providing that for our blending partners has been a
- 7:15Speaker 4: great help for them in not just sort of knowing
- 7:18Speaker 4: how ay I can help the business, but actually leveraging
- 7:21Speaker 4: it and having a fancible impact on their business.
- 7:25Speaker 2: Another thing I'll add to on a side of just
- 7:27Speaker 2: AI and of course cost of funds and liquidity and
- 7:30Speaker 2: all this fun stuff is the increasing regulatory environment is
- 7:33Speaker 2: another challenge that I've heard too, and the cost associated
- 7:37Speaker 2: with it too. Like you go through an NSU exam,
- 7:39Speaker 2: seet PB exam, I don't know what the asset size
- 7:43Speaker 2: of the listeners are. The multitude of different things that
- 7:45Speaker 2: are needed to be done from a regulatory and compliance
- 7:48Speaker 2: perspective have elevated in the past two three years to
- 7:52Speaker 2: the point where you're having to add additional fte within
- 7:54Speaker 2: your organization to adhere to those regulatory requirements. And that's
- 7:59Speaker 2: been another real key challenge in the credit union space
- 8:03Speaker 2: in the past few years.
- 8:04Speaker 3: Yeah, I think those are some challenges that we've been
- 8:06Speaker 3: hearing kind of across the board. But let's take in
- 8:08Speaker 3: a little bit more and address AI and how that
- 8:12Speaker 3: can really help in the face of some of these challenges.
- 8:15Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll start here, and I'll preface that the Upstart
- 8:18Speaker 2: crew did have some boots on the ground last week
- 8:21Speaker 2: at acus CEO's conference in Key West, and the general consensus,
- 8:26Speaker 2: outside of some of the stuff that we've already outlined,
- 8:28Speaker 2: is really two things. Is credit unions, even though they're
- 8:32Speaker 2: very widely known across the country, they continue to struggle
- 8:35Speaker 2: with providing what their identity is and getting the word
- 8:38Speaker 2: out within their communities of what is the value that
- 8:41Speaker 2: credit unions possess. And then the second, as a result
- 8:44Speaker 2: of that conversation, the credit union consolidation could be coming.
- 8:48Speaker 2: We once had ten thousand credit unions in the country.
- 8:50Speaker 2: Now down to five thousand. Don't quote me ONCT the
- 8:53Speaker 2: exact number, but somewhere in that realm. And this is
- 8:55Speaker 2: in large part due to the struggles to manage again
- 8:59Speaker 2: those inatory requirements, the cost associated with that. You're competing
- 9:03Speaker 2: with the Chase, the Wells, Spargos, the Bank of Americas,
- 9:06Speaker 2: and as a result, some of that profitability is going away.
- 9:09Speaker 2: So to your point about how AI can address some
- 9:11Speaker 2: of these challenges already outlined, is I'm going to go
- 9:14Speaker 2: through kind of like three key themes of things that
- 9:17Speaker 2: we hear and things that we talk about here at Upstart,
- 9:19Speaker 2: and one of those themes is going to be innovation innovation,
- 9:23Speaker 2: and I'm going to start it around the thought of
- 9:26Speaker 2: automation less human interaction. Consumers today do not want to
- 9:30Speaker 2: talk to an individual and a branch as much as
- 9:32Speaker 2: they would like to click some buttons on their phone,
- 9:34Speaker 2: their tablet, their computer, what have you, and not have
- 9:37Speaker 2: that human interaction and have that fully automated experience. To
- 9:41Speaker 2: give you some numbers, for instance, just on the Upstart platform,
- 9:44Speaker 2: of the borrowers that come through the top of our
- 9:46Speaker 2: funnel and apply for a loan and get funded, ninety
- 9:49Speaker 2: percent of those individuals are going through a fully automated
- 9:53Speaker 2: experience and then fast forward from another thought process of innovation,
- 9:57Speaker 2: it creates an elevated member experience. You want to serve
- 10:00Speaker 2: your member base, you want to serve your net new
- 10:03Speaker 2: members that you could be obtaining through partner channels or
- 10:06Speaker 2: even within your own internal type of rails, of ways
- 10:10Speaker 2: to promote products to your membership, and that elevated member
- 10:14Speaker 2: experience giving them real time decisions whether they're good bad
- 10:18Speaker 2: from the comfort of their own home. It allows that
- 10:20Speaker 2: member experience to be elevated for them to come back
- 10:23Speaker 2: to you for additional needs that they may have. Going
- 10:26Speaker 2: back to the theme of credit risk or economic uncertainty, things
- 10:30Speaker 2: could of course change month over month based on what
- 10:33Speaker 2: we're seeing in some of the data, but it's been
- 10:36Speaker 2: proven that the use of AI for decisioning loans particularly
- 10:41Speaker 2: that's our general scope of what we do here at upstart,
- 10:43Speaker 2: is it is a better predictor of default. It's a
- 10:46Speaker 2: better predictor of risk in comparison to using traditional underwriting
- 10:50Speaker 2: methods that maybe wouldn't allow for an approval of a
- 10:53Speaker 2: member on your internal policy and procedure. I'll give some
- 10:57Speaker 2: some statistics here too is for Upstart particularly, our model
- 11:02Speaker 2: is about three times better at separating risk between the
- 11:05Speaker 2: highest and lowest Fyco bands, which again goes back to
- 11:08Speaker 2: being able to say yes to more borrowers. And an
- 11:11Speaker 2: example of that is someone that has a six forty
- 11:14Speaker 2: FICO grade may qualify for some form of loan within
- 11:17Speaker 2: your institution, but the actual probability of that individual of
- 11:22Speaker 2: defaulting may only be let's say fifty basis points. So
- 11:25Speaker 2: being able to price that accurately and predict that risk
- 11:28Speaker 2: accurately allows you to play in that lower tier of
- 11:32Speaker 2: Fyco borrowers within your organization. And then the last kind
- 11:36Speaker 2: of key theme that I'll address is is competition and cost.
- 11:39Speaker 2: I talked a little bit already about the competition in
- 11:42Speaker 2: comparison to the larger banks, but you're also competing with
- 11:46Speaker 2: that potential credit union consolidation revolution. You're competing with the
- 11:50Speaker 2: ten billion plus credit unions or the top twenty five
- 11:53Speaker 2: that are able to reach a broader range of members
- 11:57Speaker 2: and build their businesses, and you're only able to adhere
- 12:00Speaker 2: to your existing field of membership, which might be smaller
- 12:03Speaker 2: in nature. So using AI under multiple platforms, not just
- 12:06Speaker 2: in lending, can allow your organization to really be one
- 12:09Speaker 2: with the times and better compete across the financial service ecosystem.
- 12:14Speaker 5: Hey there, former host Jeff Kelner here to let you
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- 12:29Speaker 5: Upstart is launched an online course and certification designed to
- 12:32Speaker 5: do just that. This course will give you the knowledge
- 12:35Speaker 5: you need to lead the conversation about how your organization
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- 12:52Speaker 5: slash AI Certification. Thanks, and now back to the show.
- 12:57Speaker 4: To add to what through was saying, we just entered
- 13:00Speaker 4: a new feed thure within ubserve. We call it recognized
- 13:02Speaker 4: Customer Personalization the fancy long term. Basically, all it means
- 13:06Speaker 4: is it's a method for upsearch to identify borrowers on
- 13:11Speaker 4: our platform who belong to our partner credit unions right
- 13:15Speaker 4: at the beginning of the application, so we can drive
- 13:18Speaker 4: those applications to our lending partners in a much more
- 13:22Speaker 4: efficient and faster way. And it's increasing the cross sell
- 13:25Speaker 4: now for those members and bring a better relationship for
- 13:29Speaker 4: that crediting member. So that's a new feature that's coming
- 13:32Speaker 4: in and this kind of illustrates a lot of the
- 13:36Speaker 4: innovation that Upstart is doing. We're not just an AI
- 13:39Speaker 4: lending company. We're constantly trying to find ways so we
- 13:43Speaker 4: can better support our lending partners and new lending partners
- 13:46Speaker 4: coming on board all the time.
- 13:49Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, just that line about being able to
- 13:51Speaker 3: say yes to more borrowers, I think that's crucial to
- 13:54Speaker 3: the credit unions that you're working with. Being able to
- 13:56Speaker 3: better serve their members is really critical. So well as
- 14:00Speaker 3: you know the credit union space, it's really collaborative. Peers
- 14:03Speaker 3: are learning directly from one another. Do you have some
- 14:07Speaker 3: examples of partners that you're working with who are really
- 14:10Speaker 3: successfully addressing these challenges.
- 14:13Speaker 4: I can say that I've got a couple of newer
- 14:15Speaker 4: lending partners who came to ups are not just looking
- 14:19Speaker 4: for ways that they can improve their lending capability and
- 14:23Speaker 4: certainly add some good quality high yielding loans in their books,
- 14:26Speaker 4: but they're also looking for how can I expand my membership?
- 14:30Speaker 4: So field and membership is different amongst all credit ings,
- 14:33Speaker 4: and some are more successful at leveraging. They're larger charters,
- 14:37Speaker 4: they're larger field of membership than others. What ups are
- 14:39Speaker 4: can do is actually almost on a turn can debate
- 14:42Speaker 4: to provide new members for those creditings that are coming
- 14:46Speaker 4: in markets that maybe they're not they're not a lot
- 14:49Speaker 4: of active in so my old crediting and others I've
- 14:52Speaker 4: spoken to, for the most part, those marketing activities are
- 14:55Speaker 4: centered around their market where there's a brand footprint. However,
- 14:58Speaker 4: they may have other need the other states of other
- 15:01Speaker 4: areas of the country where they have the ability to
- 15:04Speaker 4: onboard new members but just haven't really realized an effective
- 15:08Speaker 4: marketing spend in those markets. And I'll start confind borrowers
- 15:12Speaker 4: in those markets, deliver them to these creditings as new members,
- 15:16Speaker 4: and now it gives you an app back to be
- 15:18Speaker 4: able to get that second and third product service from
- 15:21Speaker 4: that brand new member and really establishing strength in that
- 15:24Speaker 4: relationship from there.
- 15:26Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll give a more seasoned example without naming names,
- 15:32Speaker 2: but we have a partner about two and a half
- 15:34Speaker 2: billion or so in assets that's been leveraging our platform
- 15:38Speaker 2: for about two years now. Of course, their CFO has
- 15:41Speaker 2: that l word of liquidity being top of mind and
- 15:44Speaker 2: almost all of twenty twenty three, but coming into twenty
- 15:47Speaker 2: twenty four, without giving exact dollar amounts, they increased their
- 15:50Speaker 2: monthly capital with us to of course drive the higher
- 15:53Speaker 2: yields right with it being a performing asset within expectations,
- 15:57Speaker 2: they were able to utilize the higher yielding asset to
- 16:00Speaker 2: augment their high cost of funds to retain their share
- 16:03Speaker 2: accounts and their certificates, a deposit that we're starting to
- 16:06Speaker 2: run off in the first quarter of this year. So
- 16:09Speaker 2: they're with leveraging our program with increased capital in the
- 16:12Speaker 2: twenty twenty four This also allows to Bury's point of
- 16:15Speaker 2: how our program works, allows them to originate more net
- 16:18Speaker 2: new members in growing their member base, and then they're
- 16:22Speaker 2: doing a very very good job on the back end
- 16:24Speaker 2: of providing cross sell opportunities. And some metrics here again
- 16:28Speaker 2: is they're seeing roughly a twelve to fifteen orsh or
- 16:30Speaker 2: so percent conversion rate on secondary products outside of just
- 16:34Speaker 2: the unsecured personnel that they're obtaining from upstart and of
- 16:37Speaker 2: course the opening of the share account, and they've been
- 16:39Speaker 2: seeing success on that across multiple different assets, not just
- 16:43Speaker 2: credit cards and autos, but they've seen some helock, they've
- 16:45Speaker 2: seen some deposit growth in cross sell too, So they're
- 16:48Speaker 2: doing very successful and of course increased capital, using that
- 16:52Speaker 2: yield to offset their cost of funds and then getting
- 16:55Speaker 2: that net new member and expanding that net new member
- 16:57Speaker 2: experience and being able to deliver multiple product across the
- 17:00Speaker 2: product offerings. Right.
- 17:02Speaker 4: So, you know, as Drew says, we are an extension
- 17:04Speaker 4: of the leadership team. We're not just dealing with the
- 17:06Speaker 4: lending folks in credit unions or finance folks. We're also
- 17:10Speaker 4: dealing with the marketing people and think about the opportunities
- 17:13Speaker 4: to provide for marketing. You can ab test all kinds
- 17:16Speaker 4: of different ways while onboarding these new members. You can
- 17:19Speaker 4: see what works and what doesn't. You can throw out
- 17:21Speaker 4: what doesn't even try and do more of what is
- 17:24Speaker 4: working and sort of layer on other marketing treatments and
- 17:28Speaker 4: elements from there. There's lots of different ways of measuring this.
- 17:32Speaker 4: We sit with marketing people all the time and sort
- 17:34Speaker 4: of brainstorm ways that they can improve cross sell or
- 17:37Speaker 4: reach out to these brand new members that they're that
- 17:40Speaker 4: they're getting from Upstart.
- 17:42Speaker 2: Yeah, and on that, like I would I would even
- 17:44Speaker 2: add outside of just Upstart or lending in general, is
- 17:49Speaker 2: if you're looking to utilize AI in any realm of
- 17:51Speaker 2: your business, like, find that partner that is able to
- 17:55Speaker 2: adhere to your goals and objectives across all different functions
- 17:59Speaker 2: within your organization and is an extension of your organization
- 18:02Speaker 2: to provide those insights and be the industry leader in
- 18:05Speaker 2: letting you know what's going on within their company so
- 18:08Speaker 2: you can better speak to your partnership when you're sitting
- 18:11Speaker 2: in front of regulators and so on and so forth. Yeah.
- 18:14Speaker 3: So I mean Upstart is partnering with more than one
- 18:16Speaker 3: hundred credit unions and banks. Now, so what are some
- 18:19Speaker 3: of the key tips that you have for success when
- 18:21Speaker 3: you're partnering with financial institutions.
- 18:24Speaker 4: I can say that my former credit uni was also
- 18:26Speaker 4: an out there partner, so I had seen it from
- 18:29Speaker 4: the implementation side, from the crediting perspective, and now coming
- 18:33Speaker 4: into off starting and delivering it. This gives me a
- 18:36Speaker 4: holistic view of how effectively implement a program like this.
- 18:41Speaker 4: But I think the biggest learning that I've had is
- 18:44Speaker 4: that we try and encourage our lending partners to start
- 18:47Speaker 4: small and really let's get the pipe built. Let's run
- 18:50Speaker 4: a little bit of water through the pipe. Let's make
- 18:53Speaker 4: sure that from a reporting standpoint, everything is working efficiently
- 18:56Speaker 4: on the back end, how that new membership is on
- 18:58Speaker 4: board on your for the accounting is looked after, the
- 19:02Speaker 4: compliance and regulatory aspects are looked after from the risk
- 19:05Speaker 4: folks within the credit union. And let's get a few
- 19:08Speaker 4: loans under your books and let's see how they perform
- 19:11Speaker 4: early and really understand how that flow of information is
- 19:15Speaker 4: coming through and how we can be efficient on the
- 19:17Speaker 4: back end so that it doesn't become a burden on
- 19:19Speaker 4: the operations folks when you're bringing in all these brand
- 19:21Speaker 4: new members. But from there, once you realize that working
- 19:25Speaker 4: pretty well, it's working efficiently, let's scale it. The nice
- 19:29Speaker 4: thing with our program is there's a lot of configurability
- 19:32Speaker 4: options available for the crediting so they can expand their
- 19:36Speaker 4: credit box, that can shrink it as their business needs changed.
- 19:39Speaker 4: You can raise or lower the volume as needed for
- 19:42Speaker 4: your program. Your net return is something that you are
- 19:46Speaker 4: providing to us as opposed to outstart saying that we
- 19:49Speaker 4: will provide that return. You're seeing what your net return
- 19:53Speaker 4: options are necessary for your business, and then we help
- 19:56Speaker 4: to deliver a portfolio that will meet those that is subjective. Well,
- 20:00Speaker 4: that was kind of my biggest learning, I think, from
- 20:02Speaker 4: both sides of the desk. With the accent relationship.
- 20:05Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't say that I was partnered with Upstart
- 20:08Speaker 2: at my prior credit union. But one thing I will
- 20:10Speaker 2: add is, even from the early onset of the discussion
- 20:13Speaker 2: with partnering, it's important to get executive buy in, not
- 20:18Speaker 2: just the lending folks. It's imperative to get board buy in.
- 20:22Speaker 2: And then once you do go forward with some form
- 20:24Speaker 2: of AI driven partnership, bring all the teams into it
- 20:28Speaker 2: as well, look at credit risk committee, bring in the
- 20:31Speaker 2: legal compliance, so on and so forth. And even though
- 20:33Speaker 2: they're not touching it every single day in some capacity,
- 20:35Speaker 2: at least they have a general sense of what is
- 20:38Speaker 2: being done. So when you get to that portion of
- 20:41Speaker 2: what Barry was talking about of scaling, everybody within your
- 20:44Speaker 2: organization is comfortable with the partnership, is comfortable with the
- 20:47Speaker 2: potential to scale, and then being able to monitor on
- 20:50Speaker 2: the back end as things have increased.
- 20:53Speaker 4: Yeah, including the board, right, Drew. I mean we've actually
- 20:56Speaker 4: spoken to board members in the past, We've had credit
- 20:59Speaker 4: unis and by this in board meetings so that we
- 21:01Speaker 4: can help to explain the merit of the program, the
- 21:04Speaker 4: bafans of the program, and some of the risks of
- 21:06Speaker 4: the program. I mean, I think we need to be
- 21:08Speaker 4: fully frank parented to all elements of the program that
- 21:12Speaker 4: hopefully will become successful for the crediting and if there
- 21:15Speaker 4: are success measures that may not be met, how it
- 21:18Speaker 4: is that up there can help to get the program
- 21:21Speaker 4: back on track because we may enter into a partnership
- 21:25Speaker 4: with a certain expectation and if the explication is met.
- 21:29Speaker 4: I mean, this is where really where Drew and I
- 21:31Speaker 4: were making our money, because we are the ones who
- 21:33Speaker 4: are coming in to help with our crediting partners and
- 21:37Speaker 4: explain what's happening with the program and to make sure
- 21:39Speaker 4: that we have the tools available in order to make
- 21:43Speaker 4: it as successful as possible for them.
- 21:45Speaker 2: Yeah. I would add to like when you fast forward
- 21:47Speaker 2: and you're partnered with any type of partnership vendor, like
- 21:51Speaker 2: make sure you stay updated on what's going on too.
- 21:53Speaker 2: From an education perspective. This wave of AI has evolved
- 21:57Speaker 2: over the past six months more than it has in
- 21:59Speaker 2: the past two years. Businesses, as does the credit union
- 22:04Speaker 2: listeners here like you have to pivot your organization to
- 22:07Speaker 2: meet specific goals and objectives. Your partners are going to
- 22:10Speaker 2: do the same thing. So as much as you know
- 22:12Speaker 2: about your partners when leveraging AI, the better suited you
- 22:16Speaker 2: will be when there are pivots within the organization to
- 22:19Speaker 2: make more accurate decisions of how you want to leverage
- 22:22Speaker 2: your partner in future years.
- 22:25Speaker 3: Yeah, you couldn't be more right about that. The advances
- 22:27Speaker 3: that we're going to see in the next couple of
- 22:28Speaker 3: years were moving so much faster than we were even ten, fifteen,
- 22:32Speaker 3: fifty years ago. Yeah, before we end today, any final
- 22:36Speaker 3: words of advice to our audience, just to really summarize
- 22:40Speaker 3: that how to win in twenty twenty four concept.
- 22:43Speaker 4: So I'll say with AI. Upstart has an animule meeting
- 22:47Speaker 4: where we bring our any partners together and we network
- 22:49Speaker 4: and we talk about advances in the industry and in
- 22:53Speaker 4: AI and so on. And we have a speaker come
- 22:55Speaker 4: in to our conference last year and you spoke about AIS,
- 23:00Speaker 4: not necessarily how you're using AI, it's really making sure
- 23:04Speaker 4: that you're being ahead of this because your competitor may
- 23:08Speaker 4: already be down the road in using the AI and
- 23:10Speaker 4: you don't necessarily know. So it's almost like for those
- 23:13Speaker 4: of you who are around in the nineties and the
- 23:15Speaker 4: Internet came on and a lot of people really struggled, Well,
- 23:18Speaker 4: the Internet, this is great, but how are we going
- 23:20Speaker 4: to use this? What's the business used for this? And
- 23:22Speaker 4: I think we've all learned that now that in the
- 23:25Speaker 4: twenty twenty is that that connectedness and the on demand
- 23:28Speaker 4: and the ability to transact business and to connect with
- 23:31Speaker 4: others is if we.
- 23:32Speaker 6: Didn't have it, we couldn't do the things we're doing
- 23:34Speaker 6: right now. And I think AI is going to have
- 23:38Speaker 6: that much an effect, possibly even more, because it's going
- 23:40Speaker 6: to make those day to day pats so much more
- 23:43Speaker 6: efficient and those decisions that have to be made and
- 23:46Speaker 6: in upstart S case, we're talking about under a decision.
- 23:49Speaker 6: It will be using more and more data and get
- 23:51Speaker 6: into a more granular site way of decision making and
- 23:56Speaker 6: you don't have to jump in with both feet on this.
- 23:58Speaker 6: I mean, I think this is where Upstart, having been
- 24:01Speaker 6: in this business for over a decade, and having a
- 24:04Speaker 6: lot of training data and a lot of experience with.
- 24:06Speaker 4: This is a good introduction for AI into creditings who
- 24:11Speaker 4: may not even know where to start. This is not
- 24:13Speaker 4: chat GPP, not where you ask a question and we
- 24:16Speaker 4: will give an answer to this impactful business use case
- 24:19Speaker 4: where we are you liedes and machine learning and artificial
- 24:22Speaker 4: intelligence to provide better decision making for you. And as
- 24:26Speaker 4: Upstart goes out and talks to prospective credit unions about this,
- 24:30Speaker 4: I think that's been very appealing for them, even more
- 24:32Speaker 4: so now because AI has become such a prevalent topic,
- 24:36Speaker 4: not just in business but in society.
- 24:38Speaker 2: Now, that's good. I'll expand a little bit off of
- 24:40Speaker 2: that and kind of close out here with the reoccurring
- 24:43Speaker 2: theme of our conversation today has been partnering with the
- 24:47Speaker 2: right partner that can help your organization stay ahead of
- 24:49Speaker 2: the curve and actually lead the conversation within your credit
- 24:53Speaker 2: union when it comes to the impact of AI. So
- 24:55Speaker 2: I'm going to make a quick plug here to the listeners.
- 24:58Speaker 2: Upstart has released an AI certification and financial services program
- 25:02Speaker 2: back on May first. This is a first of its
- 25:05Speaker 2: kind AI certification program for executives in the financial service industry,
- 25:09Speaker 2: and you can think of this course as an online
- 25:12Speaker 2: master style class being led by upstarts, executives and experts
- 25:16Speaker 2: within each field. The program is currently opened and relevant
- 25:19Speaker 2: to anyone within the industry looking to get smarter and
- 25:22Speaker 2: more informed on AI and how, where and why it
- 25:25Speaker 2: applied to the credit union industry. For now, we are
- 25:28Speaker 2: providing this for free. I've had the privilege of taking
- 25:30Speaker 2: the course. It's an exceptional opportunity to learn about AI
- 25:33Speaker 2: from a broader sense on how it's leveraged in lending
- 25:36Speaker 2: to further advanced ones knowledge for personal development and professional growth.
- 25:40Speaker 2: If you're interested, we'd love for you to register at
- 25:42Speaker 2: upstart dot com forward Slash AI hyphen Certification.
- 25:46Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's a really useful course for folks
- 25:49Speaker 3: to look into. We'll make sure to put a link
- 25:50Speaker 3: to that in our show notes as well. Well, Barry Drew,
- 25:53Speaker 3: we covered a lot today. I just want to thank
- 25:55Speaker 3: you both so much for joining us to share your insights.
- 25:57Speaker 2: Thank you, it's been a pleasure.
- 25:59Speaker 4: Thank you. Malin appreciates the time.
- 26:01Speaker 3: Yeah, and thank you to everyone for listening. And if
- 26:03Speaker 3: you're interested in learning more, you can check out resources
- 26:06Speaker 3: at www dot NAFQ dot org forward slash Upstart have
- 26:10Speaker 3: a great day everyone.
- 26:11Speaker 7: Upstart partners with banks and credit unions to grow households
- 26:14Speaker 7: and expand consumer lending through its leading AI lending platform.
- 26:18Speaker 7: Upstart powered banks and credit unions leverage AI to offer
- 26:22Speaker 7: higher approval rates and experience lower loss rates while simultaneously
- 26:26Speaker 7: delivering the exceptional digital first lending experience that consumers demand.
- 26:30Speaker 7: Whether you're looking to grow and enhance your existing personal
- 26:33Speaker 7: and auto lending programs or you're just getting started, Upstart
- 26:37Speaker 7: can help. Upstart offers an end to end solution that
- 26:40Speaker 7: can help you find more credit worthy borrowers within your
- 26:43Speaker 7: risk profile with all digital underwriting, verification, loan closing, and servicing.
- 26:49Speaker 7: It's all possible with Upstart in your corner. Learn more
- 26:52Speaker 7: about finding new borrowers, enhancing your credit decisioning process, and
- 26:56Speaker 7: growing your business by visiting upstart dot com slash lenders.
- 27:00Speaker 7: That's upstart dot com slash slenders