My Community Finance gives savers and borrowers access to ethical lenders such as Credit Unions through the Community Finance Network. The network wants to give everyone access to fairly priced and ethical financial products.
My Community Finance were looking to move away from a hardcoded in-house loan origination system that had very limited decisioning capability, to a system with much greater flexibility and automation capabilities. LendingMetrics were able to meet this requirement with their award-winning Auto Decision Platform (ADP).
When designing the decision engine, My Community Finance’s main aim was to replicate the existing underwriting rules (eligibility, credit, affordability, KYC) into ADP as well as integrating with Experian as a new data source. They were also keen to make use of some of ADP’s additional functionality, by passively testing new credit risk strategies to measure the potential effect on business.
The approach
The implementation process followed LendingMetrics’ well established project plan, spanning across 4 independent phases, led by a client dedicated Project Manager. Through weekly scheduled calls, regular updates and a focused project plan, both sides were able to ensure that the project remained focused and on track. LendingMetrics also provided a consultancy service to help document the current decision engine, so that the system was delivered with the engine fully configured and ready for use. A member of the LendingMetrics Project team was always available when needed and the technical advice and guidance that My Community Finance received was invaluable in the transition.
The result
My Community Finance have successfully launched ADP within budget and on time and are reaping the benefits of a system with the flexibility to make strategical changes quickly, without needing to process a lengthy change request with their IT team. One of the biggest benefits that My Community Finance feel they have gained from the project is their much improved understanding of their application flow and the greater degree of transparency that they now have thanks to the data returned from ADP.
LendingMetrics were very responsive with our requests...The speed with which we can change our underwriting rules is fantastic.
The ability to make swift changes and integrate with new data sources seamlessly means that My Community Finance are confident that they can remain nimble in an everchanging industry.
Vestigo Partners, a credit risk consultancy firm, supported My Community Finance in the development and implementation of ADP. Richard Pinch at Vestigo said: “LendingMetrics were very responsive with our requests, which we don’t believe is what we would have experienced with a larger company. The speed with which we can change our underwriting rules is fantastic. ADP has also enabled us to easily introduce dual bureau capability which would have been much harder with the existing system.”
My Community Finance and LendingMetrics are both looking forward to working together on the next phase of the project, implementing LendingMetrics’ award winning Open Banking product, OpenBankVision.
Neil Williams, Managing Director of LendingMetrics, said: “Working with My Community Finance was a great example of a well run and swiftly executed project by all involved. Pro-active and regular dialogue very much helped keep momentum, and solve challenges before they became an issue.”