A Lending Platform Prepared for Pandemic Pitfalls

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Managing a loan portfolio requires meticulous review, careful documentation and multiple levels of signoff.

That can often mean tedious duplication and other labor-intensive tasks that tie up credit administration staffers. So, when Michael Bucher, chief credit officer at Lawton, Oklahoma-based Liberty National Bank, came across a demonstration of Teslar Software’s portfolio management system, he couldn’t believe it. The system effortlessly combined the most labor-intensive and duplicative processes of loan management, stored documents, tracked exceptions and generated reports that allowed loan and credit officers to chart trends across borrowers. The $738 million bank signed a contract at the end of 2019 and began implementation in February 2020.

That was fortuitous timing.

Teslar Software’s partnership with institutions like Liberty National, along with its efforts to assist banks and borrowers with applications for the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program, earned it the top spot in the lending category in Bank Director’s 2021 Best of FinXTech Awards. Finalists included Numerated — a business loan platform that was another outperformer during the PPP rollout — and SavvyMoney, which helps banks and credit unions offer pre-qualified loans through their digital channels. You can read more about Bank Director’s awards methodology and judging panel here.

Prior to implementing Teslar Software, Liberty National used a standalone platform to track every time a loan didn’t meet the bank’s requirements. It was an adequate way to keep track of loan exceptions when the bank was smaller, but it left him wondering if it would serve the bank’s needs as it continued to grow. The old platform didn’t communicate with the bank’s Fiserv Premier core, which meant that when the bank booked a new loan, a staffer would need to manually input that information into the system. The bank employed one person full-time to keep the loan tracking system up-to-date, reconcile it with the core and upload any newly cleared exceptions on various loans.

Bucher says it was immediately apparent that Teslar Software offered efficiency gains. Its system can integrate with several major cores and is refreshed daily. It collects documentation that different areas within the bank, like commercial loan officers and credit administration staff, can access, allows the bank to set loan exceptions, clears them and finalizes the documentation so it can be imaged and stored in the correct location. Staffers that devoted an entire day to cumbersome reconciliation tasks now spend a few hours reviewing documentation.

Bucher was also impressed by the fintech’s approach to implementation and post-launch partnership. The bank is close enough to Teslar Software’s headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas, that founder and CEO Joe Ehrhardt participated in the bank’s implementation kickoff. Teslar Software’s team is comprised of former bankers who leveraged that familiarity in designing the user’s experience. Between February and June of 2020, the earliest months of the coronavirus pandemic, Teslar Software built the loan performance reports that Liberty National needed, and made sure the core and platform communicated correctly. Weekly calls ensured that implementation was on track and the reports populated the correct data.

Teslar Software’s platform went live at Liberty National in June — missing the bulk of the bank’s first-round PPP loan issuance. But Teslar Software partnered with Jill Castilla, CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond, and tech entrepreneur and NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to power a separate website called PPP.bank, a free, secure resource for multiple banks to serve PPP borrowers.

“Teslar Software came to the rescue when they provided their Paycheck Protection Program application tool to all community banks during a period of extreme uncertainty for small businesses due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Castilla says in a statement to Bank Director. “The partnership we forged with them and Mark Cuban was a game changer for so many that were in distress.”

And Liberty National was able to use Teslar Software’s platform to create and process forgiveness applications for the 500 first-round PPP loans it made. Bucher says the forgiveness application platform is similar to the tax preparation software TurboTax — it breaks the complex application down into digestible sections and prompts borrowers to submit required documents to a secure portal. The bank needs only one employee to review these applications.

“We had such a good experience with the forgiveness side that for PPP in 2021, we partnered with them to handle the front end and the back end of PPP [application],” he says. “It’s now all centralized within Teslar so that when we move on to forgiveness, everything is going to be there. I’m expecting the next round of forgiveness to go a lot smoother than the previous round.”

Outside of PPP, Teslar Software has allowed Liberty National’s credit administration team to manage its current workload, even as staffing decreased from 10 people to six. Instead of taking a full day to review and verify loan exceptions, it takes only a few hours. Bucher says the bank is exploring an expanded relationship with the fintech to add additional workflow modules that would reduce duplication and eliminate the use of email to share documents.

A New Look at Problem Loan Management

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Regardless of how you describe 2020, change was the common theme.

Not only did the coronavirus pandemic and economic contaction in 2020 change the way the banking industy identifies problem loans, it changed the way it approaches them. As 2020 unfolded, CLA continued to encourage institutions to evaluate policies and procedures, given that most were written for normal operating environments. A problem loan is a credit that cannot be repaid according to the terms of the initial agreement, or in an otherwise acceptable manner. In a time when payment deferrals and modifications are numerous and widespread, and government-assisted credit is necessary, how does problem loans identification change?

Risk Identification
The first step in problem loan management (PLM) is an effective risk identification program, which includes proper monitoring and continually applying appropriate risk ratings. Management teams can use internal reviews performed periodically or annually to assist with early risk detection.

Monitoring
Frequent monitoring of the portfolio remains one of the critical pillars of PLM. This requires collecting updated financials and information to monitor the wherewithal of the borrower, guarantor and related entities on a standalone and combined basis. Increased monitoring is warranted, especially for vulnerable industries.

Resources
Who leads your bank’s PLM program? Many lenders have not been exposed to a PLM process, or have not been in the industry long enough to experience an economic downturn. The art of PLM involves objective parties, including a group independent of the loan officer, to manage the loans effectively.

Evaluation of performance
Financials for 2020 will include unusual items, and completing year-over-year comparisons will require eliminating “extraordinary” items. For example, removing funds received through the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program will be essential to ascertain and review the performance of core operations. Banks will need to consider how a borrower’s core performance would have met the requirements of the original loan terms without modifications. It is pertinent to remove these items and evaluate how the borrower is functioning at its core.

Action plans
The routine nature of completing a quarterly problem loan action report deserves a new look. Banks of all sizes must address problem loans and develop plans to mitigate exposure. Action plans are a way for management to track and document each borrower’s circumstances and next steps to reduce credit risk exposure.

Problem Loan Action Plan Considerations

  • Borrower identification and history — Identify the obligor(s) (direct and indirect), ownership composition, type of business, underlying debt(s), and operational changes over the past few years or as a result of COVID-19.
  • Communication — If the borrower remains communicative, address commitments made, if any, and all legal correspondence.
  • Financial analysis — Update financial information with a look at historical trend on standalone and global basis and impact of COVID-19.
  • Repayment history — Review payment status, including any late payments or 30/60/90-day history. Discuss modifications.
  • Collateral valuation and analysis — Evaluate need for updated values given changes in market, property type, or other pertinent factors.
  • Risk rating — Consider current and recommended risk rating changes, if any.
  • Impairment analysis — Clearly document the analysis or testing for impairment to support quarterly Allowance for Loan and Lease Losses analysis.
  • Progress update — Address actionable items from the last review. Is workout plan effective?
  • Next steps — Detail steps the borrower and institution will take to improve the status of the loan. Establish clear and quantifiable objectives and timeframes for both parties and document results as the plan progresses.

The information contained herein is general in nature and is not intended, and should not be construed, as legal, accounting, investment, or tax advice or opinion provided by CliftonLarsonAllen LLP (CliftonLarsonAllen) to the reader. For more information, visit CLAconnect.com.

CLA exists to create opportunities for our clients, our people, and our communities through our industry-focused wealth advisory, outsourcing, audit, tax, and consulting services. Investment advisory services are offered through CliftonLarsonAllen Wealth Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment advisor.

How Spreadsheets Add Risk to Construction Lending

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lending-4-11-19.pngMillennials are entering the housing market with a force, yet low inventory across the country is stalling their dreams of homeownership. Now is the time for lenders to either begin or ramp up their construction loan programs. These niche loan products are a great addition to any book of business, but to be successful you have to be able to manage and service the loan after it closes.

Post close actions have traditionally been done with spreadsheets. This method, while fairly understood, is actually limiting and prone to formula errors. Additionally, spreadsheets naturally reach a tipping point in a team’s ability to scale and share reportable data with management and others in the organization. This puts loan completion in jeopardy and creates more risk to the lender.

The Limits of Spreadsheets to Manage Construction Lending
Spreadsheets can only do what they are designed to do—no more and no less. As your program grows, you are bound to reach the point where a spreadsheet is no longer functionally efficient and becomes a risky way to manage your pipeline.

  • Limited Visibility Into the Life of the Loan: Each loan has many different data points and touches over time, and housing them in a spreadsheet is basically burying important and vital information every time the loan is touched. It’s nearly impossible to see history, anticipate the future—and most importantly, clearly see problems before they arise. Spreadsheets force a reactive instead of a proactive method, which means a lender who is using spreadsheets is always playing catch-up.
  • No Reporting: Can you open up the spreadsheet right now and easily and accurately report on the pipeline, draw reports or consultant reports? The answer is probably no. And what do you do when you need to produce 1098 or 1099 reports? How do spreadsheets support these requirements? Getting your 1098s or 1099s from spreadsheets is a tedious, manual process prone to error. If you have a good quantity of construction loans, this is a large undertaking, and is difficult to scale. As you consider spreadsheets, consider the additional work that those spreadsheets will cost you over time.
  • A Finite Number Of Loans One Person Can Manage: Spreadsheets require a lot of time to properly manage one loan, and we have found that dedicated and experienced construction loan administrators can typically manage 35 to 50 loans using spreadsheets at one time. Any more than this usually adds to poor customer service.
  • Drains In-house Resources: If your program is doing well and your origination volume is growing, team members are limited in scale before a new hire must be acquired to take on more loans. Throwing bodies at the problem is not the best solution.
  • Location, Location, Location: Spreadsheets, no matter if they are stored on the cloud or on desktops, are still accessed by individual devices. You are now limited to these single failure points. What are the implications of losing this data, or the individual that knows how it works?
  • No Tracking: A spreadsheet does not offer tracking, task automation, complaint management, event monitoring, risk analysis and draw validations to ensure that the loan is meeting all of its milestones and risk requirements. As a workaround, lenders turn to the sticky note to help them keep track of important dates and actions. We all know the ineffective nature of this system, especially as key factors such as deadlines for draws, inspections, liens or permit expirations often get lost in the sticky note shuffle.
  • No Compliance Monitoring: Spreadsheets cannot keep you in compliance with government regulations, state statutes, loan program requirements, internal compliance, in-house policies/procedures or industry best practices. In order to maintain strict compliance, spreadsheets require constant vigilance. This may be their biggest limitation.

If Not Spreadsheets, Then What?
Spreadsheets just don’t cut it for construction loan management. Lenders who want to increase revenue while adding fewer additional resources need a digital construction loan management solution. Digital solutions reduce risk, improve efficiencies, allow scale and provide a better customer experience. Not to mention it keeps track of every small, yet critical, part of the construction loan. Never again will you be questioning if you are over-dispersing funds. Digital solutions, especially those that are cloud-based, can alleviate all the limitations of spreadsheets and the tipping point will be a thing of the past. Once you are running on this new level, you can bring more revenue and smart growth to your organization.

Applying the 1-10-100 Rule to Loan Management

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data-4-2-19.pngImplementing new software may seem like an expensive and time-consuming challenge, so many financial institutions make do with legacy systems and workflows rather than investing in robust, modern technology solutions aimed at reducing operating expenses and increasing revenue. Unfortunately, banks stand to lose much more in both time and resources by continuing to use outdated systems, and the resultant data entry errors put institutions at risk.

The Scary Truth about Data Entry Errors
You might be surprised by the error rates associated with manual data entry. The National Center for Biotechnology Information evaluated over 20,000 individual pieces of data to examine the number of errors generated from manually entering data into a spreadsheet. The study, published in 2008, revealed that the error rates reached upwards of 650 errors out of 10,000 entries—a 6.5 percent error rate.

Calculating 6.5 percent of a total loan portfolio—$65,000 of $1 million, for example—produces an arbitrary number. To truly understand the potential risk of human data entry error, one must be able to estimate the true cost of each error. Solely quantifying data entry error rates is meaningless without assigning a value to each error.

The 1-10-100 Rule is one way to determine the true value of these errors.

The rule is outlined in the book “Making Quality Work: A Leadership Guide for the Results-Driven Manager,” by George Labovitz, Y.S. Chang and Victor Rosansky. They posit that the cost of every single data entry error increases exponentially at subsequent stages of a business’s process.

For example, if a worker at a communications company incorrectly enters a potential customer’s address, the initial error might cost only one dollar in postage for a wrongly-addressed mailer. If that error is not corrected at the next stage—when the customer signs up for services—the 1-10-100 Rule would predict a loss of $10. If the address remains uncorrected in the third step—the first billing cycle, perhaps—the 1-10-100 Rule would predict a loss of $100. After the next step in this progression, the company would lose another $1,000 due to the initial data entry error.

This example considers only one error in data entry, not the multitude that doubtlessly occur each day in companies that rely heavily on humans to enter data into systems.

In lending, data entry goes far beyond typos in customers’ contact information and can include potentially serious mistakes in vital customer profile information. Data points such as social security numbers and dates of birth are necessary to document identity verification to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act. Data entry errors also lead to mistakes in loan amounts. A $10,000 loan, for example, has different implications with respect to compliance reporting, documentation, and pricing than a $100,000 loan. Even if the loan is funded correctly, a single zero incorrectly entered in a bank’s loan management system can lead to costly oversights.

Four Ways Data Entry Errors Hurt the Bottom Line
Data entry errors can be especially troublesome and costly in industries in which businesses rely heavily on data for daily operations, strategic planning, risk mitigation and decision making. In finance, determining the safety and soundness of an institution, its ability to achieve regulatory compliance, and its budget planning depend on the accuracy of data entry in its loan portfolios, account documentation, and customer information profiles. Data entry errors can harm a financial institution in several ways.

  1. Time Management. When legacy systems cannot integrate, data ends up housed in different silos, which require duplicative data entry. Siloed systems and layers of manual processes expose an institution to various opportunities for human error. The true cost of these errors on an employee’s time—in terms of wages, benefits, training, etc.—add up, making multiple data entry a hefty and unnecessary expense.
  2. Uncertain Risk Management. No matter how many stress tests you perform, it is impossible to manage the risk of a loan portfolio comprised of inaccurate data. In addition, entry errors can lead to incorrectly filed security instruments, leaving a portfolio exposed to the risk of insufficient collateral.
  3. Inaccurate Reporting. Data entry errors create unreliable loan reports, leading to missed maturities, overlooked stale-dates, canceled insurance and other potentially costly oversights.
  4. Mismanaged Compliance. Data entry errors are a major compliance risk. Whether due to inaccurately entered loan amounts, file exceptions, insurance lapses or inaccurate reporting, the penalties can be extremely costly—not only in terms of dollars but also with respect to an institution’s reputation.

Reduce Opportunities for Human Error
An institution’s risk management plan should include steps intended to mitigate the inevitable occurrence of human error. In addition to establishing systems of dual control and checks and balances, you should also implement modern technologies, tools, and procedures that eliminate redundancies within data entry processes. By doing so, you will be able to prevent mistakes from happening, rather than relying solely on a system of double-checking.