Popular Bank automates lending decisions with Biz2X

Popular, Inc. is the leading financial institution in Puerto Rico, by both assets and deposits, and ranks among the top 50 U.S. bank holding companies by assets. Founded in 1893, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Popular’s principal subsidiary, provides retail, mortgage and commercial banking services in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Popular also offers in Puerto Rico auto and equipment leasing and financing, investment banking, broker-dealer and insurance services through specialized subsidiaries. In the mainland United States, Popular provides retail, mortgage and commercial banking services through its New York-chartered banking subsidiary, Popular Bank, which has branches located in New York, New Jersey and Florida.

The Challenge

Popular was looking to expand their digital banking services to grow small business lending +50% within 2019. Popular Bank provided loans, lines of credit and credit cards to small and medium sized businesses using a manual underwriting system. Because of how difficult and inefficient manual underwriting had become, Popular expressed interest in the Biz2X Platform – a digital platform for loan origination, management and underwriting to increase customer approval turnaround time, manage risk effectively and increase market penetration.

“It’s a streamlined process, where the customers can actually go online and upload documents, complete the information. The system is intelligent.” Manuel Chinea COO,
Popular Bank

The Solution

The Biz2X Platform is purpose built for the Popular domain and helps the bank digitally onboard customers, auto underwrite loans and complete entire transactions digitally. In addition, Popular Bank also uses the Biz2X proprietary scoring model to underwrite smaller deals automatically.

• Automate decisions between $5,000 – $100,000
• Increase loan underwriting speed by 2.5x
• New management reports and risk analysis
• Five-minute application process on digital portal
• Self-service application for customers with at home and mobile
• Biz2X platform leverages AWS cloud and security features/ services to meet Bank’s security and compliance requirements.

“Its mobile responsive design allows customers to start an application on a handheld device, with the flexibility to finish the application at one of our branches”. Manuel Chinea COO,
Popular Bank

The Results

Once Popular went live with Biz2X it realized immediate results. Fully automated lending up to $100k loan size coupled with direct integration into bank internal systems and easy account management led to top notch results.

Key Outcomes for Popular Bank:

• 170% Increased Application Volume
• 32% Increased Loan Closure
• 28% Increased Lending Upsell

“Biz2X accelerated the time it took to decide a file and improved the average application to funded time. The ability to track pending items and communicate directly from the platform saves a lot of time”. Carlos Gorgas
Vice President, Popular Bank