How KEMBA is Navigating Economic Cycles and Expanding Member Relationships with Upstart
Headquarters:
Gahanna, OH
Founded:
1933
Asset Size:
$1.9B
Members:
125,870
KEMBA Financial Credit Union faced a familiar challenge—they wanted to enable and provide more people in the Ohio community access to affordable credit while effectively managing risk. Additionally, after seeing a huge influx in unsecured personal lending originated by fintechs five to seven years ago, KEMBA saw an opportunity to serve members with a digital personal lending partner.
Three years into the partnership, Upstart has enabled the credit union to expand relationships with new members while effectively managing risk through changing economic cycles.
Evaluating the partnership
Although KEMBA was already moving toward being more digitally enabled with its internal team, their team knew they would have to explore more options to provide for both current and prospective members. Leading the charge were KEMBA’s VP of Lending & Risk and Chief Credit Officer at the time, as well as Phil Steffes, Director of Consumer Loans and Product Development.
KEMBA’s team first considered Upstart after attending a conference where another credit union was using a similar fintech service. Even though leaders at the credit union had explored a few other alternatives prior to Upstart, KEMBA was not on board with other providers’ models, and their missions did not align.
As KEMBA’s team conducted more research, their interest was further piqued after seeing how Upstart-powered personal loans performed across credit score bands relative to other solution providers. This could enable KEMBA to price fairly while buying deeper to serve more of its members.
The leadership team decided to go with Upstart because of the similarities in lending objectives. KEMBA’s goal was to make its lending products available to a wider audience and serve a bigger part of its community—including people with lower credit scores.
Rallying executive stakeholders
Despite knowing the partnership would be a smart move for KEMBA, an essential part of moving forward meant getting the rest of the executive team to understand the vision. This involved meeting with KEMBA’s CEO and other key decision-makers, including the risk team, to get them on board with how the model would enhance risk management and enable KEMBA to serve more members at the same risk levels.
Adjusting program levers with economic cycles
KEMBA began with a crawl, walk, run approach that involved setting various program dials alongside their dedicated account manager, including volume and risk thresholds. The credit union began with a $500,000 per month threshold in early 2020 to observe credit performance. Once the team got comfortable with the credit quality, they increased their volume incrementally and have originated over $54M in Upstart-powered personal loans over three years.
Loan performance was so strong that while KEMBA initially launched with a minimum FICO threshold, they worked to eliminate FICO as a hard disqualifier in October 2021. “By leveraging the data not seen on traditional credit reports, we’re confident in Upstart’s underwriting methods. We still have controls dictating risk like maximum APR, but Upstart’s model is valuable since you can have someone with a strong credit score trending in the wrong direction, and vice versa,” Steffes elaborated.
According to Steffes, these dials have been pertinent in being able to adjust the credit union’s lending strategy during different economic cycles. “When KEMBA was flooded with stimulus during the pandemic and had strong liquidity, we could take on more volume. New car purchases were stalled, so we leveraged Upstart to gain volume by increasing our maximum APR and loan amounts and increased our volume as well,” Steffes explained.
With the high rate environment of late 2022 and early 2023, these dials have also enabled KEMBA to tighten their credit standards while still serving members credit needs with personal loans. “When times get tough, we don’t scale back on consumer lending because that’s when members need us most,” said Rick Jarrar, Chief Lending Officer.
Preparing for regulatory exams
After going through three regulatory examination cycles with Upstart, Steffes shared that Upstart has served as a valuable partner especially during regulatory exams. “Upstart does a good job of giving us the tools to prepare for regulatory exams. We can utilize the Upstart Performance Console to pull reports for our regulators as needed, and Upstart does their own fair lending analysis, which is something we can build off of,” Steffes said.
Expanding new member relationships
Another benefit of the Upstart partnership has been the ability to attract and gain creditworthy borrowers with a seamless digital experience – many of whom are millennials and Gen Z borrowers. Over the past three years partnering with Upstart, KEMBA has gained over 2,900 new members through the program.
Once memberized, the credit union engages the borrower in a year-long onboarding program to provide education about its products and services, and leverages cross-sell banners in their digital banking application, targeted emails and more to recommend additional products, including checking accounts and credit cards. Once interest rates stabilize, KEMBA also plans to offer these members auto refinance loans to help them save on their monthly car payments.
“We want to be the institution members rely on for multiple products for their financial needs, and Upstart has helped us deliver on that mission,” said Steffes.
What’s next for KEMBA?
It’s an exciting time for KEMBA as they leverage the Upstart partnership for new ideas, including marketing initiatives, to continue cultivating these new members gained through the Upstart Referral Network.
“Credit unions typically struggle to compete with larger banks especially on technology, so we need something to get us up to speed and attract new members. Upstart has helped us offer those lower rates using its risk-based pricing and digital experience,” Steffes shared.
About Upstart
Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST) is a leading AI lending platform partnering with banks to expand access to affordable credit. By leveraging Upstart’s AI platform, Upstart-powered banks can have higher approval rates and lower loss rates, while simultaneously delivering the exceptional digital-first lending experience their customers demand. More than two-thirds of Upstart loans are approved instantly and are fully automated. Upstart was founded by ex-Googlers in 2012 and is based in San Mateo, California, and Columbus, Ohio.