This is something we hear more often lately when it comes to consumer lending.

I felt a connection to the individuals in the meeting because we were both striving for better outcomes. We were both looking for a solution that would push us to the front and make us more agile to stay ahead of the competition. For me it was thinking of ways to get more steps per day; for my prospect it was implementing a strategic technology solution that would increase the pace with which they complete loan applications and respond to questions.

Finding Agile Solutions for a Tough Market

The consumer lending market is large, and is filled with non-traditional lenders that can offer loans with lower cost structures due to a virtual environment rather than the brick-and-mortar structures. Traditional lenders are now seeking solutions that will keep them nimble against their competition.

It's clear that technology is often the answer to these problems. More often than not, we see credit unions finding the agility and flexibility they need to stay profitable, competitive and efficient in ECM technology. Because increased speed and accuracy starts with getting all that paper out of the way.

Achieving Uniform, Transparent Processing

By digitizing documents, and ultimately the processes those documents are tied to, you capture information, make it instantly available and standardize your processes. In fact, you can take almost any process, including consumer loan applications, and create an automated workflow. Not only will that workflow make sure documents such as loan applications are complete and accurate, it will automatically route them to the appropriate personnel, alerting stakeholders along the way.

Detailed tracking of these documents provides enhanced visibility into the lending approval process. You know exactly where they are in the process, who has opened or altered those documents and how soon they will be completed. And, automatic document histories increase security and reduce risk with audit trails and records management.

Increasing Member Satisfaction

At the end of the day, we all know the most important aspect of lending for a credit union is focusing on member service and ensuring you can provide the best service possible. With the right ECM solution in place, your credit union can provide quicker responses to member inquiries because you can access information immediately. The faster your credit union is able to respond and approve a consumer loan, the more likely you are to secure additional business.

The competitiveness of the consumer loan market demands an agile solution. To stay profitable and ahead of the competition, credit unions are turning to ECM to streamline various aspects of the consumer loan process. This includes document imaging, input and capture, storage, retrieval and workflow routing of documents, which reduces the cost of the loan process and increases the speed at which an organization can accept a loan.

Because the faster you can approve a loan, the faster you can acquire, satisfy and retain members. And you won't need to worry about your competition, because you won't have any. As for me, I'll continue to focus on adding more steps per day to beat my Fitbit competition.

Michelle Shapiro is financial services marketing manager for Hyland, creator of OnBase. She can be reached at 440-788-6803 or [email protected].