Bringing Efficiency Into Focus: A Bank’s Digital Progression Journey

The materials available in this article are for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You should contact your own advisors with questions regarding digital progression for financial institutions. The opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the individual authors and may not reflect the opinions of MeridianLink, Inc.

In this special eight-part series of the Banking Transformed podcast - recorded at MeridianLink^® LIVE! and featuring MeridianLink^® customers - industry leaders discuss their journeys, strategies, and lessons learned along their unique paths to digital growth and digital progression.

Robert Watts, VP of Consumer Credit at D.L. Evans Bank, sat down with the podcast to discuss the bank's embrace of digital transformation through automation and advanced technology, a pivotal chapter of their digital progression journey.

Watts has been actively involved in helping the bank improve its consumer lending efforts in a way that caters to customers' demands for speed and ease-of-use while balancing risk and compliance - a tall but doable order with the right strategy and solutions in place.

Listen to the full podcast here or read on to learn more about the opportunities they identified and the tools they used to capitalize on that growth potential.

Increasing Share-Of-Wallet

Risk is always a factor in lending - a factor that can make effective consumer loan growth tricky to achieve. However, D.L. Evans Bank noticed a trend: its consumer loan portfolio had been steadily growing, and a significant portion of that growth came in the form of existing customers seeking credit cards, automotive loans, and other products.

This created an opportunity to deepen the bank's long-established relationships by offering solutions that met evolving customer needs. By focusing on increasing share-of-wallet rather than solely targeting new customers, the bank unlocked growth within its portfolio. This approach balanced opportunities with reduced acquisition costs and minimized risks, enabling confident, informed decisions.

Their strategy? Embrace digital transformation to enhance the experience-from application to funding -while keeping risk in check.

Let's see how they did it.

Efficiency Through Automation

D.L. Evans partnered with MeridianLink^® Consumer to kickstart its digital transformation, streamlining the end-to-end consumer loan process and delivering a faster, smoother application experience.

For current customers, the system's core connectivity auto-populates their information. This saves time and reduces abandonment by minimizing data entry and redundancy.

Configurable automation, such as instant decisioning, enabled quick approvals for qualified borrowers. This led to faster funding, increased efficiency, and a more satisfying customer experience.

In fact, since implementing instant decisioning, D.L. Evans Bank has seen a drastic boost in consumer loan applications, going from an average of 100-200 applications per year to an average of 300 applications per month.

Where Do They Go From Here? Listen To Learn More

By adopting a focused digital transformation strategy and streamlining workflows, the bank has reduced application times and increased loan volume. This approach consistently delivers excellent customer experiences.

Listen to the podcast in full here to learn more about D.L. Evans Bank's next steps, further optimization goals, and advice to those seeking digital progress.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.