The Company:
Glass City Federal Credit Union, a federally chartered credit union with over $300 million in assets, has been proudly serving the Northwest Ohio community since 1947. Currently, Glass City provides financial services to nearly 27,000 members, and more than 200 businesses, organizations, and associations in the region. The credit union has five full-service branch locations in Maumee, Toledo, and Bowling Green, as well as robust online and mobile banking services. A not-for-profit cooperative credit union, Glass City is owned exclusively by its members. Earnings are returned to members in the form of higher dividends on deposit accounts, and lower interest rates on loans. Also, a broad array of financial accounts and services are available at the lowest possible cost. Find out more on the company’s website at https://glasscityfcu.com/.
The Situation:
The global pandemic changed the mortgage business for everyone, but executives at Glass City Federal Credit Union were already moving away from paper and toward a more electronic process. The primary focus was on the member experience, which was being challenged due to COVID-era restrictions.
“In the past, our operation had been very paper-heavy, with members filling out paper applications and then submitting more paper documents during the origination process,” states Chris Gomez, CUBLP, Director of Mortgage and Commercial Lending for Glass City FCU. He adds, “After upgrading to a new core system for the credit union, we then implemented a new Loan Origination System (LOS) for mortgage loans. This really took us to a more digital process for mortgage lending.”
At the time the new LOS became active, the pandemic restrictions were beginning to diminish. Therefore, Glass City telephone meetings with members were gradually moving back to in-person meetings.
What Glass City executives really wanted was a way to reach out to members about new mortgage loans through their digital platform, making it more convenient for their members to explore opportunities from wherever they happened to be, on whatever device they had in their hands.
They went in search of a mortgage Point of Sale platform to work in conjunction with their new LOS.
The Solution:
Glass City Federal Credit Union implemented the Revvin Point of Sale solution and immediately began offering its members access to mortgage information and products through a fully-electronic, automated channel.
Members could visit their credit union online, request information about mortgage loans, and be linked directly to more information and a mortgage loan application. They also could now complete the application at their convenience, on any device.
No longer was the credit union or its members constrained to a meeting, in-person or otherwise, to get the mortgage process started. There was no waiting for mortgage documents to arrive at the branch and decisioning was much faster, increasing member satisfaction.
Now, when all loan documentation is gathered, it is transferred directly into the LOS. Executive dashboards provide real time information about the number of loans in the pipeline, those that have moved to the LOS and, more importantly, those that have stalled so a Glass City staff member can call up the member and get the process moving.
The Results:
“In our business, time is money,” Gomez said. “Our competitors offer similar products at similar rates. Our competitive advantage is service and the timing of getting this done.”
According to Gomez, Revvin has helped Glass City eliminate the inefficiencies built into the traditional paper-based mortgage origination process. As a result, the cycle time was reduced from an average of 43 days prior to implementing the new LOS, to 38 days prior to Revvin, to 28 days now.
Gomez says that in terms of both implementation and support, Glass City has enjoyed a great relationship with Revvin.
“They're incredibly responsive, quick to solve a problem, find where the issue is, and ensure applications aren't stuck,” Gomez said. “If we need customization, they're there every step of the way.”
This will soon become more important as Glass City prepares to implement the Revvin HELOC workflows, providing automation for home equity lending.
Finally, Glass City executives have received positive feedback from members and an increase in member satisfaction.
“Members know that they are our priority and that it’s no longer necessary for them to shuffle through a lot of paperwork or drop documents off at one of our branches,” Gomez said. “We've enhanced the member experience by building in the flexibility to allow our members to do business on their schedule, not on ours. That goes a long way toward creating a positive experience for our members.”
