How Patelco Credit Union is achieving strong credit performance, high returns and deeper member relationships with Upstart
Seeking portfolio diversification, member growth and new ways to serve membership, Patelco Credit Union partnered with Upstart. The partnership aligned with Patelco’s mission to serve additional members with a switch-to-save personal loan product, helping borrowers consolidate their high-interest credit card balances into more affordable solutions.
“We partnered with Upstart to diversify our lending portfolio, expand our direct-to-consumer reach and attract new, high-quality members,” said Josh Garrison, SVP of Consumer Lending. “Patelco sets a high bar for our membership growth goals, and we want to be a leading credit union. Upstart has helped us grow membership beyond just our indirect dealer partners and organic growth. It’s been a big win for us.”
Building confidence with leadership and compliance
From the start, Patelco prioritized alignment across its leadership team, board and compliance stakeholders and also engaged its credit risk, information security and compliance teams early in the process.
“We had a very robust onboarding and due diligence process when engaging with Upstart, and they were very supportive in building around our existing credit criteria to get our team comfortable with their AI model and performance,” said Garrison.
Garrison also shared that Upstart’s implementation process raised the bar for any partnership: “Upstart’s implementation team really set the benchmark for what a great partnership would look like; their professionalism and reliability really stood out. They consistently delivered on their commitments, and I could really count on their expertise and thoughtful recommendations. I genuinely felt like the Upstart team was an extension of the Patelco team. That’s rare, and it was a great experience,” said Garrison.
We really liked the improved economics of the T-Prime program and the positive impacts on our CECL reserve.
Josh Garrison
SVP of Consumer Lending
Expanding into T-Prime for stronger economics
Beginning with originating premium personal loans, Patelco expanded into Upstart’s T-Prime program three years into the partnership to reach super prime borrowers. This allowed Patelco to improve portfolio economics and positively impacted their CECL reserve.
“We value the stronger economics of the T-Prime program and its positive impact on our CECL reserve,” Garrison explained. “By reserving separately for T-Prime, we can clearly see its solid performance and economics stand on its own.”
Strong returns, positive credit performance and proactive portfolio management
“We’ve been very pleased with the performance of the Upstart portfolio. Performance has largely matched or exceeded our expectations. The transparency of the model and the portfolio analytics that we get make it easy for us to monitor performance,” Garrison shared.
Nearly four years into the partnership, Patelco benefits from ongoing collaboration with Upstart’s account management and operations teams for timely, data-driven insights that help them manage portfolio quality and performance.
“We appreciate Upstart’s AI-driven models, and Upstart enables us to lend deeper into the credit spectrum safely, while really keeping our returns aligned with our expectations.”
On the compliance side, Patelco has also valued Upstart’s proactive exam readiness.
“Compliance is a cornerstone of our relationship. Upstart has proactively given us program refreshers annually and a lot of the timely regulatory playbook and preparation calls have been very much appreciated,” Garrison shared.
A strategic partnership for sustained performance and growth
Looking ahead, Patelco plans to continue to expand membership and deepen relationships via additional products and services. Since launching with Upstart, Patelco has gained nearly 16,000 members, equating to about 18 percent member growth from the partnership.1
Additionally, about five percent2 of Upstart-sourced members go on to take additional products with Patelco, such as credit cards and auto loans, representing the highest cross-sell rate of any channel. With the recent launch of Upstart’s Member Cross-sell solution, Patelco has its eyes set higher by applying enhanced cross-sell strategies and technology solutions that boost member satisfaction and lifetime value from day one.
For Patelco, the Upstart partnership has been a strategic partnership that enables strong portfolio performance while serving a broader spectrum of members. “Upstart has been one of the best strategic partners we have, and I think of them as a partner. The Upstart team has been very supportive and responsive, and helped us grow our program over the last few years.”
“We’ve been very pleased with the performance of the Upstart portfolio. Performance has largely matched or exceeded our expectations.”
Josh Garrison
SVP of Consumer Lending
Resources:
- Findings are reported on information collected by Upstart from September 2021–August 2025.
- Ibid