United Trust Bank (UTB), established in 1955 in London, England, has built a solid reputation as a skilled and reliable specialist bank. As part of a range of secured funding solutions which include development finance, bridging finance and specialist mortgages, UTB provides non-regulated hire purchase and lease products to a diverse range of customers, financing assets such as prestige vehicles, engineering machinery, and agricultural equipment. By the end of 2024, UTB’s total assets were approaching £4 billion, reflecting significant growth and market presence.
To enhance efficiency and support future growth, UTB is leveraging the multi-award-winning Auto Decision Platform (ADP) by LendingMetrics into their asset financing processes, building on previous successful collaborations in their mortgage and motor sectors.
The Challenge
UTB faced challenges with their manual underwriting process, which relied heavily on Excel spreadsheets. This approach hindered their ability to scale their operations because of its time-consuming nature. As they transitioned to a new operating system, UTB recognised the opportunity to integrate automated decisioning into their asset finance operations. Positive feedback from their mortgage team guided them toward choosing LendingMetrics for this development.
The initial implementation of ADP focused on Assisted Decisioning, aiming to reduce the burden of manual repetitive tasks while retaining human input in formal credit decisions. Automating data gathering and processing from third-party sources allows their underwriters to access customer information instantly, presenting it in a useful, digestible format for making further decisions. Although full automation is not yet in place, this strategic move has already led to significant operational efficiencies, setting the stage for further advancements.
The Solution
A key feature that UTB values is ADP’s self-serve functionality, which allows users to independently manage and navigate the system to create and manage credit risk models, run passive engines to test live data, import decision engines between testing and production environments, and more. These capabilities empower them to fully leverage the platform’s potential without needing an external IT expert.
ADP also allows the generation of an audit or underwriting summary report, allowing underwriters to easily review decisioning steps and address referred applications that require further action. The time saved in the application-to-loan process has been considerable, with manual checks now streamlined. This increased efficiency has led to an increase in lending volumes, with expectations for more significant growth as full automation progresses.
The implementation of Assisted Decisioning has enabled UTB to process more business without increasing staff, reduced the likelihood of human error, and significantly enhanced the overall productivity across the team. By empowering their team with self-serve capabilities and streamlining of key processes, UTB positions themselves for continued growth.
Click here to learn how Automated and Assisted Decisioning can boost business growth without expanding the workforce
LendingMetrics has consistently been a great partner for us. Their service is excellent, and the team is extremely knowledgeable, professional, and helpful. The ease of use of their product has significantly benefited our operations.
The Future
Looking ahead, UTB plans to leverage the expertise of the Adaptive Risk Consultancy (ARC) team and eventually adopt fully automated decisioning to strengthen their business processes further. The ARC team will enhance UTB’s analytical capacity by supporting their in-house credit risk teams, refining decision engines, and designing bespoke scorecards. Through these improvements, UTB aims to achieve greater operational efficiency and faster lending decisions for their customers, ensuring continued growth and success in meeting their business objectives.
