Founded in 1953 on the value of “People Helping People”, South Bay Credit Union serves the South Bay community of Los Angeles County. For over 65 years, the South Bay Credit Union mission has been to assist the members of its tight-knit, intensely loyal community in their financial lives, not to make a profit.
In keeping with the tradition of innovation to better serve its members, South Bay launched a cannabis banking program. In this high-risk and rapidly growing market, the initiative was built as a compliance-centric banking program for South Bay members.
The Challenge
Having provided many innovative programs and services throughout its years in the community, South Bay Credit Union understood that building a new high-risk banking program would require a different angle. To keep up with rapid growth and ever-increasing volumes of new members, the credit union knew that in order to provide the best experiences, it would need to do more than simply keep pace.
In high-risk markets, business accounts would be even more complex to onboard than usual. This would require review of more documents and entities, and in order to not sacrifice experience at the cost of security, South Bay required an account opening solution that was both fast and compliant.
The ideal solution for high-risk banking at South Bay would:
Streamline the onboarding process for businesses, regardless of complexity
Onboard more business members faster and without compromising compliance
Include functionality that catered specifically to high-risk business banking entities
The Solution
With nCino Commercial Onboarding and Account Opening, South Bay Credit Union’s new program was able to increase its response time for new accounts, thereby also increasing the volume of prospective accounts the BSA team could review. With the continued development of automated processes for onboarding at the credit union, South Bay can now do more with the same amount of resources. BSA staff focuses on providing excellent member experience instead of wasting time reviewing documents.
“I couldn't imagine performing the business account opening process without [nCino]. It makes it so much more efficient and takes the guesswork out of document review.” Frank Espinoza, Chief Risk Officer, South Bay Credit Union
The Results
The South Bay Credit Union was able to automate and streamline its account opening process with nCino Commercial Onboarding and Account Opening for its new high-risk banking program, leading to:
A 50% increase in accounts opened per month
Reducing time-to-open accounts by an average of 55%
Increased volume of prospective accounts the BSA team could review
