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Headquartered in Washington, D.C., Agriculture Federal Credit Union (AgFed) has been serving the needs of its members nationwide for almost 90 years. As consumer expectations for quick access to capital and seamless digital experiences grew, AgFed knew they had an opportunity to grow its membership while expanding its share in personal loans. 

However, as a smaller credit union with an older member base, their own members did not have a need for personal loans, and AgFed was looking to increase their approval rates without taking on more risk. Thus, they knew they needed to partner in order to acquire new members and compete through an improved personal lending experience. 

Once the pandemic struck, AgFed was faced with more challenges: larger credit unions were only growing in size, making it more difficult to compete, and member experiences needed to be all digital. At the same time, internally, AgFed’s labor-intensive processes were costing more in resources than they were getting in returns. Leaders at the credit union knew it was time for a drastic change.

The AgFed team took care to ensure that all the stakeholders across IT, risk and lending were involved in the due diligence process from the beginning, allowing the team to view demos and ask questions upfront. Even as a more conservative credit union, AgFed was impressed with Upstart’s thoroughness and professionalism throughout the due diligence process, especially with regards to its AI underwriting model. 

Click explains that the team did a lot of their own internal research on how AI could improve access to credit and knew this would be a strong opportunity to differentiate themselves and acquire new loans and members. “You could no longer sit there with paralysis by analysis – you had to make some quick decisions and embrace change,” explained Click.

Once AgFed decided to move forward with the Upstart Referral Network for personal loans, they were able to go-live in just 54 days.

One of the clear benefits AgFed saw with Upstart were the multiple levels of control they had, including setting and adjusting loan volume targets, loan amounts and credit policy at their discretion. “There were a lot more criteria than we expected, so it was very helpful and made us comfortable taking the next step,” Click said. Having these guardrails and boundaries allowed the leadership team to pick the criteria they were comfortable with and stay within their own risk parameters while setting the appropriate growth targets. 

Since going live, AgFed has originated over $7 million in loan volume and acquired over 400 new members. Since Upstart is servicing the loans, AgFed wanted to automate the new member process, and the team created a tracking record on their core system to link the new members to the Upstart relationship.

As AgFed looks to the future, they have expanded their lending footprint from Virginia and D.C. into five additional states – Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Delaware. Though AgFed serves all members, they were looking to specifically target USDA workers and worked alongside Upstart to identify states with high USDA employment.

Eventually, AgFed plans on expanding its footprint with Upstart nationwide. Additionally, AgFed is discussing expansion in Upstart’s automotive refinance product to help save their members money on their auto loans with the same seamless experience offered for personal loans.

For now, AgFed looks forward to a successful future with Upstart that allows them to acquire new members while serving their needs. “People want an Amazon-like experience for whatever they deal with, and that goes for banking too,” Click explained. “It’s been such a seamless experience, and we’ve been very pleased with the Upstart relationship.”