On the state of SBA lending heading into 2024: Stephanie Dunn, Head of SBA Lending at Grasshopper Bank

Lending, Member Exclusive

LendingTree wants to own an earlier step in the loan shopping journey

• LendingTree is moving upstream in the loan-shopping journey, using ChatGPT to reach borrowers while they’re still researching what they can afford and what type of loan they need.
• The strategy tests whether AI can turn that early research into completed applications, while LendingTree applies AI across offer comparison, customer acquisition, and servicing.

Lending, Member Exclusive, Payments

Affirm wants its data to tell a more complete customer story

• Affirm is mining its data for a better read on borrowers with its new transformer-based underwriting model.
• By extracting new signals from existing data, the BNPL firm is betting that its transaction-level view of consumers can become a competitive advantage in its own right.

Banking, Lending, Member Exclusive, Podcasts, SMB Finance

Live Oak Bank’s BJ Losch on why AI is an accelerant, not a strategy

• Live Oak Bank grew from lending only to veterinarians into 40 verticals without ever opening a branch.
• President BJ Losch explains how AI is helping cut SBA loan approval-to-close times from over 100 days toward a two-week target, while keeping the credit decision itself with a human underwriter.

Lending, Member Exclusive

How Figure turned a lending business into a financial network

• Figure reported second-quarter results, showing that its platform had reached a $1 billion weekly run rate for loan applications by early July.
• The firm has come a long way since it was founded in 2018, building a more structured lending and capital markets system while increasingly making it intelligent and programmable.

Banking, Lending

Micro Case Study: LendingClub’s Identity Shift — When the business outgrew the brand

• LendingClub is rebranding its digital bank Happen Bank to align brand identity with its evolution to an integrated banking ecosystem.
• The bank is recalibrating its focus to a coordinated system where debt consolidation, credit score improvement, and savings accumulation work in tandem.