Faster loan decisions — for everyone in the chain

A modern loan, stuck in an analog process

A regional bank was under pressure to modernize its small-business commercial loan process to stay competitive with peers already ahead of the curve. The current state: physical paperwork, disconnected systems, in-person trips to the banker, and a stack of tiresome hurdles that frustrated everyone involved — borrowers and bank staff alike.

Faster, less manual, more insightful — on both sides of the desk

Make commercial loan decisioning faster, with less manual intervention and more insightful data — for the customer and the employee. The catch with lending: a "faster" decision still has to be a sound one, so the work was as much about credit confidence as it was about speed.

Leading the room, and the work

As Lead Innovation Strategist I owned the engagement end to end and the cross-functional delivery team — strategists, designers, developers, video, SMEs, and the account team. I framed the problem, planned the design-thinking workshop, and drove the client to a single experience strategy. The room itself was the asset here: a deep bench of client stakeholders, executives included.

Four weeks, framed to de-risk before building

The evidence behind the concept

Real research, not a brainstorm — composite personas for every player in the chain (the SMB borrower, the credit analyst, the commercial banker), empathy and journey mapping, and structured ideation filtered down to a buildable solution. A sample, sanitized:

Composite character profiles — every role in the lending chain, researched

Empathy map — what a borrower actually feels in the process

How-Might-We — pain points reframed as solvable prompts

Solution sketches — concepts made tangible, fast

The "draw a duck" warm-up — 22 of them — loosening a room of bankers

Customer-experience storyboard — the new loan journey, scene by scene

From paper to a validated digital concept

The engagement produced a validated, high-fidelity iOS prototype, an executive pitch, and a concept advertisement — taking the bank from paper-and-in-person to a digital decisioning experience the room had aligned behind, with substantially improved satisfaction for both customers and staff.

4 wksbrief to validated, high-fidelity prototype

~18client stakeholders aligned in one room

iOSfunctional prototype + executive pitch delivered