Independent Banker - July 2024 - 65

Guest Experts:
Lending
Generate Value for Farm Customers and the Bank with Data
Challenge/Solution: Ag lenders want their farm customers to maximize output in the field, and sell crops profitably, but often don't
know if the farmer succeeded until weeks or months after harvest! Croptell's A.I. driven analytics fills the deep financial information
gap that exists during the growing season, between the farmer and the bank, and provides insights that strengthens the bank's ag
loan portfolio.
Filling this gap with data-science based tools is revolutionary
to ag lenders. In addition to increased transparency into farm
financial potential, proper analysis with artificial intelligence
will show bankers how to identify trends, better manage risk,
increase loans, and know the customer even better than they
know their own soil. This modern analytic approach leads to
enhanced customer experience and more profitable lending.
By utilizing the power of data, community banks can better
compete against other financial institutions that loan money to
farmers.
In early testing with banks, and from prior farm financial
consulting experience, we first learned that many farms can
add equipment to maximize workflow, revenue potential, and
mitigate price risk or input cost increases. In most cases, ag
banks have the opportunity to fund these purchases loans or
lines of credit collateralized with real estate. The irony is that by
increasing credit appropriately to the farm, the bank is actually
mitigating risk by putting the farmer in an optimum situation
to operate at full asset capacity. Second, a separate line of credit
to hedge crop prices, and to forward purchase fuel and fertilizer
enables farmers to manage risk without impeding operating
capital. Last, farm demographic analysis supports the ag bank's
ability to assist farm customers with long term planning, tailored
financial solutions, and generational farm family continuity that
also supports the community.
Croptell uses various sources of data to build analytics. To start,
our proprietary digital onboarding tool called the Farmer Fast
Assessment™ quantifies aspects of the farming operation not
measured by the banker, but included in a loan write up, and
categorized as " Character " in the Five C's of Credit. The output,
the Croptell Score™, is a measurement of the farmer's ability to
farm.
The precision agriculture technology sector is generating a
significant amount of meaningful data for farmers. Tractors, grain
bins, irrigation systems, and weather sensors are connected,
and the market is expanding. Farmers are able to share this data
through application program interfaces (API's).
Other sources are public and private data sets that provide
benchmarked and correlative values relevant to specific crops,
state and county data, and bank size. We also seek to layer non-PII
customer data and analysis that our bank customers have built into
our system.
By leveraging Croptell's subscription-based platform, banks
can monitor crop loans efficiently, increase farm loan volume,
and manage the bottom line of the agricultural portfolio more
profitably.
Scott Sartor - Founder & CEO
901-413-3822 croptell.com

http://www.croptell.com

Independent Banker - July 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Independent Banker - July 2024