Streamlining Loan Operations

Client Need : A top 50 bank was experiencing a 30% annual growth rate in its commercial, consumer and mortgage loan portfolios, and loan operations staff expenses were increasing proportionately. The bank wanted to sustain growth while reducing expenses, increasing scalability and minimizing risk. Loan operations management believed its post-closing loan review practices were overly cautious causing performance to suffer as compared to peers.

Solution: BenchMark reviewed and documented current policies, procedures and processes for post-closing loan review, lien perfection and lien release, including the current use of image in the review process and the proposed use of image in the lien perfection and lien release processes. Each area was compared to industry peers in the Benchmark database and change alternatives, including process and policy changes that would enhance performance, were proposed. Process improvement recommendations for lien perfection and lien release were made to better utilize the bank’s current and proposed image-enabled workflow technology.

Results : Proposed process and policy changes identified resulted in a minimum of $750,000 in annual expense reduction or capacity increases in the units assessed of at least 40%. Additional opportunities were identified that would enable the bank to move beyond these levels, with the acceptance of minimal additional risks.