How easy is your mobile lending process?  Not how easy it was for your developers to create it, nor how easy it is on your back end processes, but the part that really matters: How easy is it on your members, or potential members, to start and complete a loan application? If your mobile loan applications prove to be difficult, applicants will grow frustrated and either abandon the process. A mobile loan is supposed to be easy, and the process to the end user should be a slam dunk… an easy, uncontested two points for both your credit union and your members.

According to research by Forrester, 16% of loan applicants drop out of the process because they are sick of supplying the same information over and over again. An additional 11% leave the loan application midstream because they don’t feel they should have to supply the information at all! If they are already a member and are logged into your mobile banking application, why isn’t your system intuitive enough to auto populate fields your credit union already knows? If you are losing more than a quarter of loans started because you are requiring fields such as name and SSN, or fields that members don’t have memorized (such as account numbers), when that information already exists in your data base, it should be obvious the workflow is too complicated. Afterall, it’s obvious to 27% of your applicants.

For applicants that are not already members, it makes sense to both you, and the applicant, that they will need to supply additional information to get started. Consider a loan application process that is smart enough to identify who are members and who aren’t, and only ask the questions of the people you need the information from. Of course, you still require information from members, but they don’t need to see the information you already have!

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