Independent Banker - January 2024 - 59

Digitalizing the commercial
lending process
With a new digital commercial loan solution, The Killbuck Savings Bank Co. has catapulted its commercial
lending and loan origination system into the high-speed digital era. By Mindy Charski
hen Matt Miller was hired
as chief lending officer of
The Killbuck Savings Bank Co. in
Killbuck, Ohio, in 2019, he sought
to develop a process that would
enable the community bank to handle
commercial loan requests more
efficiently and seamlessly.
How was he going to do that,
exactly? The answer was clear:
digitalization. Moving the bank's
manual commercial loan process to
an all-digital platform would be a big
leap forward for the $827 millionasset
community bank.
W
" You need to have people who are really
committed to making [a digital commercial loan
solution] work and moving it forward. "
-MATT MILLER,
THE KILLBUCK SAVINGS BANK CO.
In June 2021, that goal came to
fruition when the bank went fully live
with a loan origination system called
LoanVantage, a solution from its core
provider, Jack Henry.
According to Miller, inside a single
system, The Killbuck Savings Bank
could finally start a loan application
and move it through underwriting,
processing, approval and closing
Name:
The Killbuck Savings Bank
Co.
Assets:
$827 million
Location:
Killbuck, Ohio
before uploading it to the core. No
more passing documents around to
people to complete their tasks, and no
more entering the same information
repeatedly in spreadsheets.
" Overall, in my opinion, it's
been a great advancement for
our bank, " says Miller, who also
serves as the community bank's
senior vice president. Now, he
says, the loan process generally
moves more expeditiously, which
benefits customers.
Notably, when what the executive
calls a " loan rush " hit in 2022, the
community bank was ready. Loan
volume grew 25% that year, with the
bulk being commercial loan growth.
In fact, Killbuck processed more
than 1,000 commercial loans in its
digital platform.
But what if the new system hadn't
been in place? Miller is just glad he
doesn't have to think about that.
An industry shift toward
digitalized commercial lending
While many banks have some
form of digitalization for consumer
lending-including The Killbuck
Savings Bank-things look different
on the commercial side.
" The reason is because of the
complexity, " says Gary Lewis,
managing director of lending and
deposits at Jack Henry. " No two
commercial deals look the same. "
He says commercial lending is
independentbanker.org // 59
Hiring more people may have been an
option, he says, but it's also possible
the bank would have had to turn
away applications.
" I would have found it hard to
believe that we could have kept up
with the volume, " he says. " We would
have had to tell people, 'I just don't
have the capacity to get there,' and no
banker wants to do that. "

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