By Devon Kinkead

The latest first quarter 2025 credit union performance data from Callahan & Associates reveals a fascinating paradox: members are saving more than ever, yet lending growth is slowing dramatically. For credit unions wondering how to navigate this landscape, the answer lies not in waiting for market conditions to improve, but in embracing precision-targeted prescreen marketing technology that turns these trends into competitive advantages.

The Member Behavior Shift: What the Data Reveals

Credit union members are sending clear signals about their financial priorities. Shares grew by an impressive 4.6% annually in Q1 2025, marking the highest growth rate in more than two years and the second consecutive quarter where credit union share growth outpaced the national personal savings rate of 4.0%. Even more striking, the $64.7 billion increase in shares exceeded 2024’s first quarter by nearly $11 billion.

This isn’t just about certificates anymore. Every share product increased, with regular shares growing more than $20 billion and share drafts close behind. Members are building accessible emergency funds and preparing for uncertainty, demonstrating exactly the kind of prudent financial behavior credit unions exist to support.

However, the lending side tells a different story. Total loan growth slowed to 3.4% annually, down from 4.6% a year ago. The median loan growth dropped to just 0.34%, indicating that larger credit unions are driving most industry lending while smaller institutions struggle. Year-over-year declines appeared across credit cards, auto loans, and other residential real estate lending.

The Widening Performance Gap Demands Action

Perhaps the most concerning trend in the data is the expanding gap between mean and median performance. While industry averages suggest moderate health, the median credit union’s 0.34% loan growth reveals that half of all institutions are experiencing near-stagnant lending portfolios. This divergence signals that traditional approaches are no longer sufficient, and institutions that fail to adapt will find themselves increasingly marginalized.

This is where automated prescreen marketing becomes not just advantageous, but essential. The credit unions capturing market share now will define the competitive landscape for years to come, and those relying on manual processes and broad-based marketing simply cannot compete with the speed and precision of AI-powered targeting.

The Refinancing Opportunity Hiding in Plain Sight

While overall lending has slowed, members aren’t borrowing less because they don’t need credit. They’re being more selective about when and how they borrow. This creates a perfect environment for targeted refinancing campaigns that help members save money while providing credit unions with profitable loan growth.

Consider the opportunities embedded in the current market:

Credit Card Debt Consolidation: With delinquency improving slightly in Q1, members are demonstrating better financial habits. This is the ideal time to proactively identify members paying excessive interest rates on credit cards or other high-cost debt and offer them meaningful savings through personal loans or home equity products.

Auto Loan Refinancing: The slowdown in auto lending doesn’t mean existing auto loans have disappeared. Automated prescreen technology can identify members whose credit scores have improved since origination or who are paying above-market rates, offering them immediate monthly savings.

Strategic Product Positioning: Members moving money into liquid, lower-dividend products signals they value accessibility. This presents opportunities for flexible credit products like HELOCs that provide the security of available funds without the commitment of term loans.

From Reactive to Proactive: The Automated Prescreen Advantage

Traditional prescreen marketing has been complex, labor-intensive, and primarily accessible only to large banks and fintechs. This complexity involves coordinating multiple vendors, managing compliance requirements, and manually analyzing results across disconnected systems. The 21-day average approval time and 36-day closing timeline that characterize traditional approaches simply cannot compete in today’s environment.

Automated prescreen technology fundamentally changes this equation by leveraging AI, machine learning, and access to comprehensive credit data across more than 230 million consumer records. Instead of generic “great rates available” messaging, members receive hyper-personalized offers that show exactly what they could save. For example: “You’re currently paying $280 per month too much in interest. Refinance your $40,639 debt from 19.890% to 8.642% and keep that money in your pocket.”

This level of personalization drives higher conversion rates while maintaining full FCRA compliance. Credit unions implementing automated prescreen typically see material conversion rate improvements, with many achieving net negative acquisition costs where the income from new loans actually exceeds campaign expenses.

Aligning Technology with Credit Union Mission

The beauty of automated prescreen marketing is how perfectly it aligns with the fundamental mission of credit unions. Rather than simply driving growth metrics, this technology enables institutions to:

Improve Member Financial Health: By continuously monitoring member portfolios and proactively offering better rates, credit unions can automatically identify and help members who are overpaying for credit.

Build Deeper Relationships: Demonstrating ongoing care for member financial wellbeing through timely, relevant offers reinforces trust and creates the foundation for primary financial relationships.

Strengthen Communities: When members save money through refinancing, that increased disposable income flows back into local economies, multiplying the positive impact of every loan.

Extend Financial Inclusion: Data-driven insights help identify underserved populations who would benefit most from better credit options, expanding the reach of the credit union mission.

The Margin Reality Creates Urgency

The good news from Q1 2025 is that net interest margins hit 3.23%, the highest level since 2010, outpacing the operating expense ratio of 3.06%. This provides credit unions with the financial flexibility to invest in growth initiatives. However, this margin advantage won’t last indefinitely, and the institutions that leverage it now to build automated marketing capabilities will be positioned to capture market share as competitive dynamics shift.

The data is unambiguous: member savings are growing faster than lending, the performance gap between institutions is widening, and members are making deliberate choices about their financial futures. Credit unions that continue relying on manual processes will watch larger institutions and fintechs capture the refinancing opportunity while their portfolios stagnate.

Taking Action: The Path Forward

The convergence of strong member savings behavior, improving delinquency trends, and widening performance gaps creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity for credit unions ready to act decisively. Automated prescreen marketing provides the speed, precision, and scalability to transform these industry trends into institutional advantages.

The technology exists. The market opportunity is proven. The question facing every credit union leader is whether their institution will be among those capturing market share through intelligent, member-focused automation, or settling for whatever’s left after competitors act first.

For credit unions seeking to bridge the growing performance divide, the time to embrace automated prescreen marketing isn’t tomorrow. It’s today.

Start your growth journey today here.

The American credit landscape is experiencing a remarkable transformation. As Steve Cocheo of the Financial Brand points, out, while the middle shrinks, both ends of the credit spectrum are expanding rapidly—creating what industry analysts call a “barbell effect.” For financial institutions equipped with automated prescreen marketing technology, this bifurcation represents an unprecedented opportunity to capture profitable growth by serving two distinctly different but equally valuable market segments.

The New Reality: A Tale of Two Markets

Recent data reveals that super prime consumers now represent the fastest-growing segment, with originations up 9.4% year-over-year, while subprime originations surged an impressive 21.1%. This isn’t a temporary anomaly—it’s a fundamental restructuring of the American credit market that demands a sophisticated response.

According to VantageScore, the super prime credit tier increased by 0.7% to 31.2% while the subprime tier grew by 0.4% to 18.3% year-over-year, causing the prime credit tier to continue shrinking. This hollowing out of the middle creates unique challenges for traditional lending approaches that rely on one-size-fits-all marketing campaigns.

The implications are profound. TransUnion’s Michele Raneri notes that “there are groups of people in our economy who are doing very well compared to the historical averages,” while simultaneously warning that the slower but steady growth in the subprime segment requires careful monitoring. This dual expansion demands precision targeting that manual prescreen processes simply cannot deliver at scale.

Why Traditional Approaches Fail in a Bifurcated Market

The credit barbell effect exposes critical weaknesses in conventional lending strategies. Traditional prescreen marketing—with its weeks-long development cycles, manual list generation, and generic messaging—cannot effectively address two radically different customer segments simultaneously. By the time a traditional campaign reaches market, opportunities have often passed.

For example, American homeowners are sitting on $25.6 trillion in tappable home equity, with 61% locked into mortgage rates of 6% or lower. Combined with data showing that consumers with more than $4,500 in credit card debt show a 5-8 times higher likelihood of originating a HELOC, this represents a massive refinancing and debt consolidation opportunity. This opportunity exists at both ends of the credit spectrum—from prime borrowers seeking to optimize their assets to subprime borrowers needing debt consolidation—but capturing it requires speed and precision that legacy systems cannot provide.

Consider the operational reality: Many financial institutions take 3-6 months to get a prescreen campaign launched, meaning by the time an offer reaches market, the opportunity has often passed which can be seen clearly in the market share reports in post campaign analytics. In a bifurcated market where super prime borrowers have numerous options and subprime borrowers face rapidly changing circumstances, such delays are fatal to market share growth.

The Automated Advantage: Serving Both Ends Simultaneously

Automated prescreen marketing technology fundamentally changes this equation. By leveraging databases of 230+ million consumer credit records refreshed weekly, these systems can identify profitable lending opportunities for both existing accountholders and prospects across the entire credit spectrum. This isn’t just about speed—it’s about intelligence applied at scale.

For super prime borrowers, automated systems deliver:

• Instant identification of competitive refinancing opportunities
• Personalized savings calculations based on actual debt holdings
• Premium service positioning that appeals to sophisticated borrowers
• Cross-sell opportunities for wealth management and investment products

For subprime borrowers, the same technology provides:

• Careful risk assessment with appropriate pricing
• Debt consolidation opportunities that genuinely improve financial health
• Graduated product offerings that build long-term relationships while managing risk
• Compliance-assured messaging that protects both institution and borrower

Financial institutions using automated prescreen technology report that personal and auto loans close in an average of 42 days, while the system processes 230 million credit records weekly to deliver completely financially personalized FCRA-compliant firm offers. This combination of speed and personalization is essential when competing for both high-value super prime customers and price-sensitive subprime borrowers.

Real-World Results: The Power of Precision

The impact of automated prescreen marketing in a bifurcated market is measurable and dramatic. Financial institutions implementing these systems report solid real ROI, including cost of funds, and net negative member/customer acquisition cost through thoughtful execution of automated prescreen campaigns and optimization using post campaign analytics. This performance stems from the ability to simultaneously pursue multiple strategies across multiple loan types:

Banks and credit unions using automated prescreen technology can target high-payment auto loans held by competitors, proactively offer refinancing before customers shop elsewhere, and connect refinancing with other debt consolidation products. This multi-pronged approach is particularly effective in a barbell market where different segments require different value propositions and are driven by different behavioral economics.

The technology’s ability to identify micro-opportunities within each segment proves especially valuable. Algorithms can identify the 29% of consumers most likely to benefit from refinancing from 230 million credit records in hours rather than weeks, enabling institutions to move with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

Strategic Imperatives for the Bifurcated Future

Success in this new credit landscape requires more than technology—it demands a fundamental shift in strategic thinking. Financial institutions must:

Embrace Dual-Track Development: Create distinct but parallel strategies for super prime and subprime segments, recognizing that success metrics, risk tolerances, behavioral economics and relationship dynamics differ fundamentally between these groups.

Automate Compliance at Scale: The most sophisticated prescreen systems integrate compliance checks directly into the automation workflow, validating regulatory requirements, performing credit checks, and ensuring fair lending compliance instantaneously. This is essential when serving diverse populations with different regulatory sensitivities.

Focus on Lifetime Value: In a barbell market, initial acquisition is just the beginning. Automated prescreen marketing systems enable continuous monitoring and engagement, identifying when subprime borrowers qualify for better products or when super prime customers might benefit from additional services.

The Bottom Line

The credit market’s bifurcation isn’t a temporary disruption—it’s the new normal. About 25% of the U.S. population now has a FICO credit score below 660, meaning they are subprime, while super prime borrowers continue to accumulate wealth at unprecedented rates. Financial institutions that can effectively serve both ends of this barbell will capture disproportionate market share.

Automated prescreen marketing technology makes this dual-focus strategy not just possible but profitable. By eliminating the traditional trade-offs between scale and personalization, speed and compliance, these systems enable institutions to pursue growth opportunities across the entire credit spectrum simultaneously.

The question isn’t whether to adapt to the barbell effect—it’s how quickly institutions can implement the technology and strategies needed to thrive in this bifurcated landscape. Those that act decisively will find themselves uniquely positioned to serve the financial needs of an increasingly polarized but opportunity-rich market.

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By Devon Kinkead

The banking industry stands at an inflection point. While global banking achieved record profits of around $1.2 trillion in 2024, with revenues hitting $5.5 trillion, market valuations still trail other industries by nearly 70 percent McKinsey & Company. This disconnect reveals a fundamental truth reshaping the industry: scale alone no longer guarantees success. Instead, precision strategies that generate value are becoming essential for institutions to catch the next growth curve.

For community banks and credit unions, this shift from scale to precision isn’t just good news—it’s a competitive advantage waiting to be claimed.

The End of the Scale Advantage

The traditional banking playbook emphasized size above all else. Bigger balance sheets, broader branch networks, more customers—these were the metrics that mattered. But recent industry analysis reveals this model is breaking down. Even smaller banks can outperform if they embed focus and discipline into every part of their strategy TechRepublic, with precision becoming “the great equalizer” in the industry.

Consumer behavior tells the same story. In the United States, only 4 percent of new checking account openings now come from existing customers, down from 25 percent in 2018 (TechRepublic). Loyalty isn’t automatic anymore. Customers expect their financial institutions to understand them, anticipate their needs, and deliver personalized solutions—capabilities that require precision, not just scale.

Why Community Institutions Have the Edge

While large banks struggle with legacy systems and organizational inertia, community financial institutions possess inherent advantages in the precision economy:

Deeper Customer Knowledge: Community banks don’t just have data—they have context. They understand the local economy, know their customers’ businesses, and can identify life events that trigger financial needs.

Agility in Decision-Making: Without layers of bureaucracy, community institutions can adapt quickly. Financial institutions must have a sharp focus on step-by-step priorities that transition them to modern systems while also sustaining momentum through early benefits (The Financial Brand)—something smaller institutions can execute more readily.

Trust and Relationships: In an era of AI-powered banking, the human element becomes more valuable, not less. Community institutions already excel at combining technology with personal service.

The Micronotes Model: Precision at Scale

This is where innovative solutions like Micronotes become game-changing. Rather than trying to outspend large banks on broad marketing campaigns, Micronotes enables precision execution through post-campaign analytics and continuous optimization.

Consider this real-world example: Recent results from a personal loan campaign targeting debt consolidation prospects in Greater Los Angeles revealed that despite distributing 15,161 offers across 42 cities, the campaign only captured 13% of the total available market—well below the 23% benchmark (Micronotes). Traditional marketing would chalk this up as a partial success and move on. But with AI-powered post-campaign analysis, the platform quickly diagnosed specific gaps and delivered four actionable, compliance-cleared recommendations to improve loan acquisition rates by 5-8% and increase funded volume by up to 40% (Micronotes).

This isn’t just about better targeting—it’s about creating a learning system that improves with every campaign. After each drop, the platform ingests multi-dimensional outcome data — loan amount, FICO, income, DTI, rate won/lost, CPA — and applies programmatic optimization that treats every campaign as a controlled experiment (micronotes).

From Batch-and-Blast to Continuous Optimization

The transformation enabled by precision analytics represents a fundamental shift in how community institutions can compete. Traditional quarterly marketing campaigns become continuously optimized systems that improve conversion and win-rate every cycle (micronotes). This approach delivers three critical advantages:

1. Resource Efficiency: Instead of competing on marketing spend, community institutions optimize return on every dollar invested.
2. Speed to Market: While large banks navigate complex approval processes, agile community institutions can test, learn, and adapt in real-time.
3. Compliance-First Innovation: Built-in regulatory guardrails mean innovation doesn’t come at the cost of compliance risk.

The Primacy Opportunity

The real prize isn’t just new customer acquisition—it’s achieving primacy. Research shows that primary relationships generate 3.2x more revenue and 8x lifetime value compared to secondary relationships (Micronotes). For community credit unions and banks, precision execution offers a path to primacy that large banks can’t match through scale alone.

The Path Forward

McKinsey estimates an industry-wide cost reduction potential of 15 to 20 percent through AI implementation (Finnews), but for community institutions, the opportunity goes beyond cost savings. It’s about competing differently—using precision and execution excellence to overcome scale disadvantages.

The institutions that will thrive aren’t those waiting for perfect conditions. They’re the ones taking action now, implementing targeted solutions that deliver immediate value while building capabilities for the future. As one credit union executive noted after implementing precision prescreen marketing tools: “When we are getting those reports—your tracking mechanisms and your data analytics—and we’re getting those reports of number of clicks, number of conversions… month one” Micronotes.

The message is clear: in banking’s new era, David doesn’t need to become Goliath. With precision, execution excellence, and the right technology partners, community financial institutions can win by being exactly what they are—deeply connected, highly responsive, and uniquely positioned to deliver the personalized banking experience customers increasingly demand.

The question isn’t whether precision will define banking’s future—it’s whether your institution will seize this moment to transform a competitive disadvantage into your greatest strength.

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By Devon Kinkead

When Savana Morie’s recent article in Credit Unions Magazine highlighted Wright-Patt Credit Union’s transformative Pathways to Homeownership initiative, it struck a particularly personal chord for me. Having spent the first 18 years of my life in Dayton, Ohio, I’ve witnessed firsthand the challenges facing Northwest Dayton—the very communities Wright-Patt is working to revitalize.

But beyond the personal connection, this story represents something even more powerful: the intersection of mission-driven purpose and data-driven precision that defines modern credit union growth.

The Challenge Hidden in Plain Sight

Wright-Patt Credit Union ($9.3B, Beavercreek, OH) has emerged as one of the two largest purchase-money lenders in the Dayton area, with more than half their mortgages going to first-time buyers. As President and CEO Tim Mislansky shared with Morie, “Affordable homeownership is one of the keys to financial success. When we can help members become homeowners, we can help them build wealth, strengthen families, and create lasting communities.”

That commitment is admirable—and it’s backed by a $1.3 million investment from the WPCU Sunshine Community Fund to construct 30 new homes in Northwest Dayton over the next three years. But here’s the question every mission-driven credit union must ask: How do you find the right people to fill those homes?

The Data Behind the Dream

This is where prescreen marketing transforms theory into impact. Our recent (Sep 2025) Growth Opportunities Analysis for Wright-Patt Credit Union revealed something remarkable:

Within just 5 miles of Wright-Patt’s 40 branches, there are 172,328 credit-qualified individuals ready for mortgage opportunities—representing a potential loan volume of $35.8 billion.

Let me put that in perspective. While Wright-Patt is building 30 homes over three years through their Pathways initiative, there are over 172,000 qualified mortgage candidates already living in their branch network footprint. These aren’t random names—these are real people who:

• Have FICO scores between 680 and 850
• Have demonstrated responsible credit behavior with no current delinquencies
• Meet industry standard underwriting criteria (below)
• Live within a short drive of a Wright-Patt branch
• Are currently without a mortgage or are first-time homebuyers

Criteria Definition	Rule Summary
FICO Score	Between 680 and 850.
Total number of debt counseling trades excluding collections	Equal to 0.
Total number of trades presently 30 or more days delinquent or derogatory excluding collections	Equal to 0.
Total number of trades ever 30 or more days delinquent or derogatory occurred in the last 12 months including collections	Equal to 0.
Total number of trades ever repossessed	Equal to 0.
Number of months since the most recent trade ever charged-off including indeterminates	No charged-off trades ever.
Total number of public record bankruptcies	Equal to 0.
Total number of trades excluding collections and student loans including indeterminates	Greater than or equal to 3.
Number of months since the oldest trade was opened excluding collections and student loans including indeterminates	Greater than 36.
Total number of non-medical collection trades	Equal to 0.
Total balance on medical collections	Less than or equal to $2,000.
Total number of first mortgage trades ever foreclosed including settled first mortgages	Equal to 0.

Not all 172,328 will qualify for enough of a loan to meet market home prices so, the credit union should take market prices into account when designing the prescreen campaign ensuring that any such policy does not create a disparate impact under the ECOA or Fair Housing Act.

From Mass Marketing to Mission Alignment

Traditional mortgage marketing casts a wide net and hopes for the best. Prescreen marketing does something fundamentally different: it identifies individuals who already qualify for your specific lending criteria before you ever reach out.

For Wright-Patt’s Pathways to Homeownership initiative, this precision matters even more. Director of Community and Social Impact Ivy Glover told Morie that the program includes a five-week homeownership readiness program, one-on-one coaching, and financial education sessions. That’s a significant investment of time and resources—which makes targeting the right candidates from the start absolutely critical.

“We didn’t just cut a check,” Glover explained. “We committed to making homeowners.”

The Micronotes Advantage: Turning Data Into Opportunity

Our Automated Prescreen™ platform analyzed 1,809,213 Experian records within 5 miles of Wright-Patt’s branch locations. After applying Wright-Patt’s underwriting criteria, we identified 723,188 qualified prospects across all loan categories.

For mortgage opportunities specifically, here’s what we found:

• 172,328 qualified mortgage candidates
• $35.8 billion in potential loan volume
• Average loan qualification: $154,314
• All candidates living within a 5-mile radius of 40 branches across 182 zip codes

Once the program is executed, each prospect receives a personalized, firm offer of credit—not a generic “you might qualify” message, but an actual pre-qualified offer with specific loan amounts, rates, and monthly payments based on their individual financial profile.

Bridging the Education Gap

One of Glover’s key insights in the article particularly resonates with our approach: “I wish we’d started the education piece sooner.”

This is where prescreen marketing creates a natural bridge between acquisition and education. When you reach a qualified prospect with a specific, personalized offer, you’re not starting a conversation from scratch—you’re answering a question they may have already been asking themselves: “Can I afford a home?”

For Wright-Patt’s target demographic in Northwest Dayton—where over 70% of residents rent and more than 40% are housing-cost burdened—seeing a concrete, qualified mortgage offer can be the catalyst that transforms “someday” into “now.”

The Ripple That Could Become a Wave

Glover shared with Morie: “I tell my team all the time: Every drop makes a ripple, but some make a much bigger one. This is a big ripple moment.”

She’s absolutely right. But imagine if Wright-Patt could systematically identify and reach every qualified mortgage candidate in their branch network? What starts as a ripple could become a genuine wave of homeownership transformation.

Our analysis reveals opportunities across multiple product categories that support the journey to homeownership:

• 104,890 qualified personal consolidation loan prospects ($1.4B volume) to help clear high-interest debt
• 53,010 HELOC/HELOAN consolidation opportunities ($6.7B volume) for existing homeowners looking to refinance
• 47,764 auto loan refinance prospects ($1B volume) to free up monthly cash flow

Each of these products plays a supporting role in the homeownership journey—helping members improve their debt-to-income ratios, build credit, and position themselves for mortgage qualification.

A Personal Note on Coming Home

As someone who grew up in Dayton, I’ve watched neighborhoods transform—sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. The 2019 Memorial Day tornadoes that sparked the original Pathways to Homeownership initiative devastated communities I knew well.

What Wright-Patt is doing goes beyond lending. As Glover notes, “My teacher lived down the street; my doctor was two blocks over. One of the goals is to restore that sense of community and accountability where people know their neighbors and look out for one another.”

That’s the kind of community impact that makes this work meaningful. And data-driven prescreen marketing is the bridge that connects mission to execution—ensuring that every qualified member who could benefit from these programs actually knows they exist and can access them.

The Path Forward

Wright-Patt still needs to raise an additional $2.75 million to complete Phase III of their housing initiative. But as Mislansky told Morie, “We believe this, along with continued fundraising and collective storytelling from all the partners, will lead to the additional funding needed to complete the next phases.”

Perhaps, if Wright-Patt can help more first-time homeowners at lower cost, it can funnel some of those savings into Phase III.

That storytelling becomes even more powerful when backed by data. When donors and partners can see not just 30 new homes, but 172,328 qualified opportunities waiting to be realized, the vision expands from a project to a movement.

Making Every Connection Count

Wright-Patt’s Housing Collective represents exactly the kind of cross-departmental, mission-driven thinking that defines successful credit unions today. But mission without mechanism is just aspiration.

Prescreen marketing provides that mechanism—the ability to:

1. Identify qualified prospects with surgical precision
2. Reach them with personalized, firm offers of credit
3. Convert interest into applications
4. Learn from post-campaign analytics and improve next campaign performance
5. Scale successful programs across your entire branch network

For a credit union committed to making “more than half” of their mortgages to first-time buyers, the ability to systematically identify and reach 172,328 qualified mortgage candidates isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s a strategic imperative.

The Bottom Line

Wright-Patt Credit Union is doing exactly what credit unions were founded to do: serving people of modest means and rebuilding communities from the inside out. Their $1.3 million investment, their five-week education program, their partnership with community organizations—all of it represents the best of the credit union movement.

Micronotes’ role is to ensure that this incredible work reaches everyone who could benefit from it. That James, the single father in Northwest Dayton who’s been renting for years discovers he actually qualifies for a $154,000 mortgage. That the young couple making ends meet learns they could consolidate their high-interest debt and free up $261 per month. That the family dreaming of homeownership finds out their dream is actually within reach.

As Mislansky concluded in his conversation with Morie: “We believe this program can change lives, revitalize communities, and demonstrate what’s possible when mission-driven organizations work together.”

With 172,328 qualified opportunities waiting within just 5 miles of Wright-Patt’s branches, the question isn’t whether they can change lives—it’s how many, and how fast.

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By Devon Kinkead

In “Navigating Compliance Challenges in the Age of Data‑Driven Financial Marketing,” Alyssa Armor, VP Product, Financial Services at Vericast reminds financial marketers that the era of hyper-targeted, data-rich campaigns comes with very real regulatory and reputational risks.

A few key takeaways:

• Marketing teams must integrate compliance functions at the campaign design stage, not treat compliance as an after-thought or a final checkbox.
• The use of machine learning / AI in targeting introduces risks of disparate impact, because many input variables (credit-score, homeownership, ZIP code, income) correlate with protected classes.
• The shift from broad-reach to precision-targeting amplifies both opportunity and risk: what was once “reach everybody” is now “reach the right set of people,” but in doing so, marketers must still guard against unfair exclusion or unintended bias.
• Because of increased regulatory scrutiny and the sophisticated analytics now available to regulators themselves, financial institutions cannot assume “we’ll check compliance after launch” will suffice.

In short: the article’s perspective is that compliance is no longer simply a cost center—it must sit front and center in the workflow of data-driven marketing.

My Reaction

Ms. Armor’s perspective is spot-on. At the same time, I’d argue that the story goes beyond “marketing must be careful”—it’s marketing must be smart, iterative, measurable, and compliance-enabled. Two themes stand out:

1. Measurement and optimization: Data-driven marketing means you can measure a lot—response rates, conversion, cost per acquisition, lost applications to competitors, etc. But too often compliance constraints are treated as static (“we have to check X, Y, Z”), rather than dynamic (“what do we learn from each campaign about risk exposure, bias, and performance?”). Without measurement loops, you won’t improve.
2. Embedded compliance automation: The article rightly points to modelling risks, disparate impact, and third-party vendor exposure. But if you try to manually manage compliance review of every algorithm, model, channel, offer creative and audience segment, you’ll choke the campaign cadence. That’s where automation + AI compliance tooling become vital.

The good news: when you combine post-campaign analytics (what happened, what worked, what under-performed, where we got conversion or lost volume) and compliance AI/tools (pre-launch monitoring, bias detection, automated creative rule-check, vendor monitoring, audit trails) you begin to build a virtuous loop of campaign-to-campaign improvement.

Bridging to Prescreen Marketing: Why the Micronotes Lens Matters

Turning to the prescreen marketing context (as the Micronotes blog posts emphasise) offers an instructive lens. According to our “What Standard Chartered Taught Us about Speed—and How to Apply It to Loan Growth” piece, the prescreen business lives at the cross-roads of underwriting, marketing, compliance (FCRA), data, channels.

Key points from that piece that apply here:

• They emphasise a structured operating model (single ranked backlog, weekly huddle, visual board) to deliver campaign slices, measure cycle time, track “right-first-time” rates, etc.
• They call out explicitly that one of the metrics to measure is “right-first-time rate: % of slices that launch without rework (proxy for clean inputs & compliance).” 
• Post-campaign analytics are central: they talk about “review post campaign analytics and determine what’s winning market share and what isn’t.”

If we overlay this with the compliance challenges highlighted in the Financial Brand article, one can see how the alignment becomes critical: you cannot just launch a prescreen campaign and hope for the best. Instead you should embed into the prescreen campaign lifecycle:

• Pre-launch compliance gate: Use compliance AI/tools to check creative language (FCRA disclosures, equal-opportunity language, nondiscriminatory language), audience segmentation (check for potential disparate impact), vendor data quality, data sourcing, data modelling for bias.
• Launch + tracking: As the campaign runs, capture response metrics, conversion, channel performance, cost per acquisition, lost volume to competitors.
• Post-campaign analytics: Segment by geography, credit tier, product type, channel, audience slice. Identify what worked (and what didn’t) — including where compliance issues or risk exposures appeared (for example, high rework for creatives, high regulatory review time, or unexpected audience exclusions).
• Feedback loop: Use the insights from the post-campaign review to refine the next campaign slice: adjust targeting, refine model inputs so as to reduce bias risk, adjust creative language to improve clarity/disclosures, adjust channel cadence, reduce cycle time, improve “right-first‐time” rate.

In other words: compliance is not a static checklist before launch—it becomes part of the continuous improvement loop. And that loop is measurable because of the analytics.

Why This Combined Approach Matters

Here are some of the major reasons why blending post‐campaign analytics with compliance AI and tooling is increasingly mission-critical:

1. Speed wins — In prescreen marketing, offers go out and often conversion decisions happen very quickly. If you drag compliance review or fail to learn from prior slices, you lose the moment. This Micronotes piece shows how the feedback loop allows faster cycle time and higher throughput.
2. Risk reduction — As The Financial Brand article emphasizes, using data and AI for targeting can inadvertently create disparate impact. If you only deploy campaigns, you risk model error, discriminatory outcomes, regulatory scrutiny or worse. Integrated compliance tooling helps detect and mitigate these risks early.
3. Performance improvement — Analytics show what works (which slices convert, which channels yield, which segments are responsive). That fuels smarter segmentation, channel mix, creative personalization, which in turn drives better ROI. Meanwhile, compliance review ensures that the changes you make don’t violate guardrails.
4. Auditability & documentation — Regulators expect you to show not just “we complied” but “we have processes, we review, we measure, we adjust.” Having both analytics and compliance tooling means better documentation of campaign decisions, segmentation rationale, model logic, creative review history.
5. Competitive differentiation — Many institutions treat compliance as a cost and slow down their marketing. If you embed compliance smartly and use analytics to iterate, you can move faster and smarter than competitors who are still stuck in manual, slow workflows. Micronotes emphasizes flow, fewer slices in process, finish top priority slices every week.

Practical Steps to Implement the Combined Approach

We advise financial institution (bank or credit union) to operationalize this approach through a phased roadmap:

Phase 1 – Baseline & Governance

• Map your current prescreen marketing workflow: who owns targeting, creative, compliance review, launch, and post-campaign analytics.
• Establish clear governance: marketing, compliance/risk, data science/analytics functions must be aligned and have defined roles.
• Identify key metrics: cycle-time from slice start → launch, cost per funded loan, response rate by segment, conversion by channel, right-first-time rate (compliance reworks).

Phase 2 – Compliance AI & Tooling Enablement

• Deploy or integrate a compliance technology platform that can: pre-scan creatives for regulatory language/disclosures, evaluate audience segmentation for bias/disparate impact, monitor vendor data and model inputs for fairness and auditability.
• Train marketing/data teams on how to interpret compliance flags and adjust accordingly.
• Establish pre-launch compliance gate: no campaign goes out without automated compliance check + human sign-off.

Phase 3 – Post-Campaign Analytics Framework

• Build dashboards: For each prescreen campaign slice, capture performance by segment (credit tier, geography, product, channel), and also capture compliance metrics (e.g., creatives reworked, audit findings, complaint rates, regulatory flags).
• Conduct reviews at fixed cadence (weekly or biweekly huddle + improvement hour) where marketing and compliance meet to evaluate last week’s campaign slice, blockers, performance, compliance issues.

Phase 4 – Feedback & Continuous Improvement

• Use analytics findings to adjust subsequent campaign slices: e.g., target a higher-response segment, adjust offers or messaging, shift channels, refine model inputs to reduce bias risk.
• Use compliance findings to refine the targeting/creative/compliance interplay: e.g., discover that certain combination of filters correlated with protected class over-exposure → adjust modeling or segmentation logic.
• Track improvement over time: show how cycle-time improves, right-first-time rate increases (fewer reworks), cost per funded loan decreases, conversion improves.

Phase 5 – Scale & Institutionalise

• Once this feedback loop is proven for one or two products or regions, scale to multiple product types (auto refi, HELOC, personal loan), and across geographies.
• Document your workflows, audit trails, dashboards and embed this into the operating rhythm.
• Use the data to show to senior management/regulators: “here is how our campaign-to-campaign improvement process works, and how we manage compliance risk while driving growth.”

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Final Thoughts

The intersection between compliance and growth in data-driven financial marketing is no longer optional—it is strategic. The article from The Financial Brand makes the case clearly: as targeting becomes more precise, the margin for error shrinks, and regulatory scrutiny tightens. The prescreen marketing commentary from Micronotes adds actionable operational discipline: define slices, track cycle-time, measure “right-first-time,” run improvement cycles.

By marrying post-campaign analytics (to capture what the market told us, what worked, what didn’t) with compliance AI/tooling (to monitor risk, bias, regulatory alignment) you build a campaign machine that is both compliant and optimized. In effect: you move from one-off campaigns to a continuous improvement engine where compliance is baked in—and growth is the outcome, not an accident.

Learn more

By Devon Kinkead

When Nelson Repenning, my former professor at MITSloan, business partner, and friend and Don Kieffer tell the Standard Chartered story in their new book, There’s Got to Be a Better Way, the headline isn’t “more meetings fixed everything.” It’s that good work design turned a 120-day approval slog into a 20-day flow, unlocking >$250M/year in otherwise foregone revenue. They did it by (1) connecting the human chain—putting all 16 risk owners and project leads in a single weekly huddle guided by a rank-ordered “common backlog”—and (2) regulating the flow so the top one or two items got finished every week before starting more. 

That one design change eliminated the asynchronous back-and-forth (conflicting asks from separate risk functions, local reprioritization, task-switching) that was burning calendar and cash. And because work flowed in a shared lane, problems surfaced immediately and were handled in a separate weekly “improvement hour.” 

There’s a second lesson embedded earlier in the book: start small, let results travel. At Standard Chartered, thousands of bite-size problem-solving projects compounded to $150M impact in <2 years and 10,000 colleagues using the method. 

Now, what does that imply for loan growth using automated prescreen marketing?

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Prescreen has the same failure modes—and the same fixes

Automated prescreen lives at the intersection of lending (underwriting, rates), marketing (creatives, cadence), risk/compliance (FCRA), data (Experian ADS), and channels (email, direct mail, digital banking, SMS). The work crosses functions, so static, serial handoffs create the exact gridlock, task-switching, and local prioritization that slowed Standard Chartered’s approvals. 

Micronotes Prescreen is built to automate the mechanics—eligibility, offer generation, file exchange with Experian, compliant creatives, launch and reporting—but organizational flow decisions still determine your cycle time from “market signal” to “offer in-hand.” 

Here’s how to apply Standard Chartered’s moves to prescreen—verbatim, this quarter.

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1) Create a single, rank-ordered Prescreen Backlog (the “common backlog”)

• Make one list of the top 3 prescreen “slices” (e.g., Auto Refi for existing customers, HELOC consolidation within geo X, Personal Consolidation to attriters). Order by NPV per calendar day so every day of delay is visible cost—just as Standard Chartered priced each day of approval slip. Then, finish the top 1–2 slices every week. 
• Tie each slice to concrete inputs Micronotes Prescreen needs: underwriting criteria, rate/fee sheets, campaign settings. Don’t start the slice until those inputs are “clean.”
• If you don’t have the data to start building a Prescreen Backlog, get a free near-branch loan growth opportunity analysis here.  

Why this works: a common backlog kills local reprioritization (“my campaign first”) and channels everyone to the system’s critical path—exactly what drove the 120→20-day drop at Standard Chartered. 

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2) Run a weekly Prescreen Huddle plus a separate Improvement Hour

• Huddle (45–60 min): CLO, CMO, Compliance, Risk/CRO, IT/Data, and Campaign Ops meet once, live. Review the top of the backlog: Did last week’s slices ship? What’s blocking the next two? No status theater; demo the actual deliverable (selection file generated, creatives FCRA-checked, Experian file returned, comms in the queue). Micronotes enable this process through a weekly campaign update email as shown below in figure 1.  

Figure 1

• Improvement Hour (30–60 min): Pick one change you can make this week to remove the biggest blocker (e.g., rate-sheet version control; faster compliance template path, faster responses on creative updates). This mirrors Standard Chartered’s second weekly ritual. 

Why this works: separating delivery from improvement keeps flow moving while also increasing capacity week-over-week. 

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3) Visualize the work with a simple wall/board tied to the tool’s artifacts

Map the end-to-end Micronotes Prescreen flow for each slice and move a single card left-to-right only when the real artifact exists:

1. Inputs locked (underwriting, rates/fees, campaign settings) → 2) Selection file generated & sent → 3) Prescreen file received (PII) → 4) Compliant creatives approved → 5) Channel queued → 6) Launched → 7) Results posted (opens/CTR/response, booked loans/HELOCs, NPV).

This keeps everyone aligned to the actual mechanics of the platform—Experian ADS, selection/prescreen file exchange, FCRA-checked creatives, and deployment/reporting—so you’re visualizing truth, not opinions.  Micronotes facilitates this process with a Monday.com work board.

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4) Limit WIP: fewer slices in process → faster cycle times

If the board “goes pink” (everything is late), you’ve overloaded the system. Cancel or pause slices until work moves. Don’t confuse busy people with a productive system—a misconception Standard Chartered had to dismantle. 

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5) Start small and scale

Pilot with one campaign (e.g., ALR to existing members via email). Prove cycle-time and revenue gains, then replicate. That’s how impact spread inside Standard Chartered—thousands of small wins rolling up to nine-figure value. 

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A 90-day prescreen playbook (field-tested)

Weeks 1–2: Design for flow

• Stand up the single backlog (top 20 slices ranked by NPV/day).
• Establish the weekly huddle + improvement hour; publish attendance and rules of engagement.
• Finalize the wall/board mapping the Micronotes Prescreen stages to visible artifacts. 

Weeks 3–6: Ship two slices

• Lock underwriting criteria + rate/fee sheets for slice #1 and #2.
• Generate Selection File → send to Experian → receive Prescreen File (PII); stage compliant creatives; launch. 

Weeks 7–10: Raise the ceiling

• Use Improvement Hour to remove the biggest blocker (e.g., rate-sheet freshness, compliance templates).
• Review post campaign analytics and determine what’s winning market share and what isn’t.

Weeks 11–13: Scale what works

• Keep backlog strictly ordered; finish the top 1–2 every quarter.
• Publish results: cycle time (days from slice start→launch), booked balance/loans, NPV/day freed by faster flow. Tie back to objectives: marketing share, wallet share, conversion, compliance, reporting. 

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What to measure (and why finance will love it)

• Cycle time per slice (days): Your version of Standard Chartered’s “120→20.”
• $ per calendar day: NPV of incremental bookings divided by elapsed days, so the backlog is ordered by value of speed (not politics).
• Right-first-time rate: % of slices that launch without rework (proxy for clean inputs & compliance).
• Throughput: slices shipped per week.
• FCRA compliance adherence via templated creatives & approvals in the tool. 

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Bottom line

Standard Chartered’s results didn’t come from heroics—they came from designing the work to flow across functions: a single backlog, one weekly lane to finish work, and a habit of fixing the system every week. Automated prescreen has the same cross-functional anatomy and benefits from the same operating system. Wire these principles on top of Micronotes Automated Prescreen—clean inputs → selection → Experian → PII → compliant creatives → launch → learn—and you’ll reduce time-to-offer, raise conversion, and create space for discovery instead of firefighting. 

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Source: Repenning & Kieffer, There’s Got to Be a Better Way (Standard Chartered approvals flow, common backlog, improvement hour, and quantified impact). 

By Devon Kinkead

Introduction

Banking futurists keep announcing the death of the branch. Yet, real data tells a more complicated story.

Micronotes’ post-campaign analytics revealed that home equity loan conversions increased sharply the closer members lived to a branch. Members within one mile of a branch converted at five times the rate of those more than five miles away — and beyond 15 miles, conversions nearly vanished.

That finding seems to contradict Brett King’s provocative thesis in Branch Today, Gone Tomorrow, summarized in The Financial Brand, which argues that branches have become functionally irrelevant in the digital age.

So which is true? Are branches still essential, or are they obsolete?

The Data: Distance Still Drives Conversions

Distance Range (mi)	Conversion Rate
0–1	0.5 %
1–5	0.1 %
5–10	0.1 %
10–15	0.2 %
15+	0 %

Micronotes Analysis, Feb 2025 — new customer HELOC Firm Offer of Credit

Why This Happens: It’s Not About Transactions — It’s About Trust

The conversion lift near branches isn’t a relic of paper processes — it’s a psychological signal. Physical proximity reinforces trust, familiarity, and confidence in a brand’s permanence.

When the product is high-stakes — like pledging home equity — prospects want the reassurance that someone nearby can help. A branch’s mere existence reduces perceived risk, even if the borrower never walks through the door.

In short: branches still move people, even if they no longer move paper.

Behavioral Mechanisms Behind the Branch Effect

1. Trust & Reassurance
   Proximity communicates stability — “If I need help, I know where to go.”
2. Hybrid Journeys
   Digital buyers still toggle between screens and conversations. A nearby branch lowers friction when they need a human step.
3. Local Brand Exposure
   Branch presence amplifies marketing awareness via signage, sponsorships, and community footprint.
4. Engaged Member Cohorts
   Households near branches often have stronger engagement or relationship tenure, which compounds conversion probability.

Reconciling Brett King’s Argument

Brett King is right about one thing: the traditional, transaction-centric branch has reached the end of its useful life.
Routine banking is mobile-native. Consumers want instant, 24/7 access and invisible infrastructure.

But our data show that for high-trust, high-involvement decisions, branches still exert measurable influence.
They no longer define banking — they reinforce belief in the institution behind it.

In that sense, King’s thesis and the Micronotes findings are two sides of the same coin.
Branches aren’t obsolete; they’re evolving from utility to symbol.

The New Model: Branch-Light, Trust-Heavy

1. Digital-First, Branch-Smart
   Design campaigns digitally — but leverage branch proximity as a conversion multiplier for complex products.
2. Geo-Weighted Marketing
   Use distance from branch as a predictive variable. Increase bids or offer value inside a 15-mile “trust radius.”
3. Redefine the Branch Footprint
   Shrink physical square footage, but expand reach through micro-hubs, co-locations, and advisory centers.
4. Equalize Digital Trust for Distant Members
   Provide virtual consults, video closings, and live-chat concierge services to neutralize the distance penalty.

The Takeaway

The data and the futurists are both right — just about different things.
Yes, digital dominates transactions. But trust — the invisible currency of banking — still benefits from physical proximity – particularly when the stakes are high.

Branches may be fewer and smaller in the future, but they’ll remain powerful conversion amplifiers in markets where emotion, risk, and reassurance intersect.

The smartest banks won’t be branch-heavy or branch-free. They’ll be branch-light — and trust-rich.

By Devon Kinkead

The shift in American retirement investing over the past two decades offers crucial strategic insights for community financial institutions. According to Parker et al.’s forthcoming Journal of Finance study, middle-class Americans now invest 71% of their retirement wealth in equities—a dramatic increase from the 58% documented by Ameriks and Zeldes (2004) in the 1990s—largely driven by Target Date Funds (TDFs) becoming default investment options after the 2006 Pension Protection Act (PPA).

Understanding Target Date Funds

Before diving into the implications, it’s worth explaining what made TDFs so transformative. A Target Date Fund is essentially a “one-stop shop” retirement investment that automatically adjusts its mix of stocks and bonds as you age. Think of it like cruise control for your retirement savings. If you’re 30 years old and plan to retire around 2060, you’d choose a “2060 Fund.” According to Parker et al.’s research, “A typical TDF maintains 90% of its assets in equity funds until roughly 20 years before retirement date, and then decreases this share as employees age to 40-50 percent in equity at target retirement date.” The genius is that this rebalancing happens automatically. You don’t need to remember to make changes, understand market timing, or even know what percentage of stocks versus bonds is appropriate for your age. The fund does all of this for you, solving a problem that had plagued retirement savers for decades: most people either took too much risk near retirement or too little risk when young.

The Power of Smart Defaults

The most striking finding is how effectively default options shape financial behavior. Parker et al. document that when employers switched to TDFs, “younger new enrollees (those aged 25-35 when they enroll) [invested] 5% more of their financial wealth in the stock market” (specifically 5.5% as shown in Table IV). Meanwhile, older workers reduced equity exposure—both moves aligned with optimal lifecycle investing theory. Remarkably, even workers who weren’t defaulted into TDFs eventually adopted similar strategies, with the researchers noting this “convergence” effect over time.

For community banks and credit unions, this demonstrates the enormous responsibility and opportunity in product design. When we talk about “defaults,” in this context, we mean the pre-selected options that automatically apply unless a customer actively chooses something different—like the standard overdraft protection settings on a checking account or the automatic minimum payment on a credit card. Every default setting—from savings account auto-transfers to loan payment structures—shapes member financial health at scale.

Income Disparities Demand Targeted Solutions

The research reveals stark differences by income level. According to Table IV, lower-income workers benefited most from TDF defaults, with their equity allocation increasing by 5.99% compared to just 1.86% for workers in the highest income tercile. This suggests automated, well-designed financial products can help close wealth-building gaps.

Community financial institutions, which often serve more diverse income populations than large banks, should prioritize developing simplified, automated products that guide less financially sophisticated members toward better outcomes without requiring active management.

The Persistence Problem in Savings

While portfolio allocation improved dramatically, contribution rates barely budged. The study finds that “average retirement saving rates across all birth cohorts average 4.5% at age 25 and 8.5% at 65 years of age.” The Pension Protection Act’s savings-focused provisions actually correlated with decreased contribution rates initially. As shown in Table VI, “those aged 25-35 [had] -0.43% of income [lower contributions] for those age 25-35, and [this] becomes increasingly negative with age, reaching -1.2% for those age 55-65.”

This highlights a critical challenge: changing savings behavior is far harder than changing allocation behavior. Community institutions need to recognize that simply offering better savings products isn’t enough—they need comprehensive strategies addressing the psychological and structural barriers to saving.

Strategic Imperatives for Community Institutions

1. Embrace Behavioral Architecture Design products with optimal pre-set features based on member demographics and lifecycle stages. A 25-year-old opening their first checking account should have different automatic settings (like default savings transfers or overdraft preferences) than a 55-year-old consolidating retirement accounts.

2. Automate Complexity Away TDFs succeeded by making sophisticated rebalancing automatic—growing from “less than $8 billion in 2000 to managing almost $6 trillion in 2021” according to the paper. Community institutions should similarly embed financial expertise into product structures, offering “set-it-and-forget-it” options for debt payment optimization, emergency fund building, and long-term savings.

3. Deploy Continuous Automated Prescreening Following the model described by services like Micronotes, community institutions should implement continuous automated prescreening to identify when members qualify for better rates or products. This proactive approach can automatically alert members when they’re eligible for lower-cost loans or better account features, reducing borrowing costs without requiring members to constantly shop around. Just as TDFs automatically rebalance portfolios, automated prescreening can continuously optimize members’ financial products.

4. Focus on the Underserved The dramatic benefits for lower-income workers suggest community institutions can create significant value by designing products specifically for financially vulnerable populations, potentially partnering with employers to integrate these into workplace benefits.

5. Rethink Financial Education The TDF revolution succeeded not through education but through structural change. While financial literacy remains important, community institutions should prioritize making good financial decisions automatic rather than relying solely on member education.

6. Leverage Regulatory Tailwinds The Pension Protection Act shows how regulatory changes can catalyze massive behavioral shifts. Community institutions should actively engage with regulators and policymakers to advocate for frameworks that enable better default options in banking products.

The Long Game

Perhaps most importantly, the research shows these changes took time. As Parker et al. note [in Table V], the effects persisted but declined over five years—for young workers, the equity share difference between treated and control groups went from 3.63% in year two to 2.57% in year five. Community institutions must commit to long-term strategies, measuring success not just by immediate adoption but by sustained behavioral change across their member base.

The transformation of American retirement investing proves that thoughtfully designed defaults can overcome decades of suboptimal financial behavior. For community banks and credit unions committed to member financial wellness, the lesson is clear: the architecture of financial products matters as much as their availability. By embedding expertise into product design and making optimal choices automatic, community institutions can drive profound improvements in financial outcomes—particularly for those who need it most.

Source: Parker, J.A., Schoar, A., Cole, A., & Simester, D. (forthcoming). Household Portfolios and Retirement Saving over the Life Cycle. Journal of Finance.

By Devon Kinkead

In the hyper-competitive HELOC consolidation market, where a recent campaign revealed competitors capturing 96% of actively interested prospects, financial institutions need more than traditional marketing approaches. They need a strategic framework for interpreting and responding to competing market signals.

The Four Forces Shaping HELOC Marketing

Drawing from an MIT Sloan strategic signal framework, HELOC marketing operates across two critical dimensions: time horizon and impact level. This creates four distinct categories of market forces that demand different strategic responses:

Continental Drifts (Long-term, High Impact)

The fundamental shift in consumer debt patterns represents a slow-moving but transformative force. With credit card rates hovering near historic highs and home values appreciating steadily, the structural opportunity for HELOC consolidation continues to expand. This isn’t a trend to chase quarterly—it’s a multi-year positioning play that rewards institutions building sustained market presence.

Lightning Strikes (Short-term, High Impact)

The $73 million in lost opportunities revealed in recent campaign data represents a lightning strike—a sudden, stark revelation of competitive vulnerability. When prospects who received your targeted offers choose competitors 34 times more often, you’re facing an immediate crisis requiring rapid response. Speed-to-decision, digital application capabilities, and instant pre-approval processes become non-negotiable.

Smoldering Embers (Long-term, Low Impact)

The underperformance in prime credit segments (811-850 scores) represents a smoldering challenge. While not immediately catastrophic, the persistent inability to capture high-value relationships accumulates opportunity costs over time. These segments require patient relationship-building strategies rather than mass marketing campaigns.

Surface Ripples (Short-term, Low Impact)

Minor rate adjustments and promotional offers from competitors create constant market noise. The temptation to respond to every competitive move dilutes focus from strategic priorities. Not every signal demands action.

Strategic Response: From 3% to Market Leadership

Success requires different responses to different signals:

For Continental Drifts: Build persistent market presence through monthly awareness campaigns and content marketing that positions your institution as the consolidation expert. This isn’t about immediate conversion—it’s about being top-of-mind when prospects are ready.

For Lightning Strikes: Implement emergency protocols for competitive response. The data shows high-DTI borrowers (64%-77%) convert at 8x the rate of prime borrowers. Immediately reallocate resources to these underserved segments while building the operational capabilities (24-hour approval, digital applications) that competitors already possess.

For Smoldering Embers: Develop differentiated value propositions for premium segments. Stop competing on rate alone. Instead, bundle wealth management services, offer relationship pricing, and create exclusive experiences that justify choosing a local lender over national competitors.

For Surface Ripples: Establish clear criteria for response. Not every competitor’s promotion warrants action. Focus on structural advantages rather than tactical reactions.

The Behavioral Economics Advantage

The most successful HELOC consolidation campaigns leverage behavioral triggers that transcend traditional demographic targeting. Monitor signals like multiple credit card balance increases, recent property value appreciation, or changes in payment patterns. These behavioral indicators predict consolidation readiness far better than credit scores.

Geographic performance data reveals another crucial insight: success concentrates in markets with existing brand recognition. Rather than spreading resources thinly across all territories, double down where you already have trust and awareness advantages.

Execution Through Focused Priorities

The path from 3% to 30% market capture requires ruthless prioritization:

1. Speed and Simplicity – If competitors approve in 24 hours, you need to approve in 12
2. Segment Specialization – Own the high-DTI segment while competitors chase prime
3. Behavioral Targeting – Replace demographic campaigns with trigger-based outreach
4. Local Advantage – Leverage community connections where national lenders can’t compete

The Strategic Imperative

The HELOC consolidation market presents a clear dichotomy: massive opportunity shadowed by intense competition. Success belongs to institutions that can decode competing signals, distinguish critical forces from market noise, and execute targeted responses with precision.

The $73 million that walked to competitors wasn’t lost to better rates—it was lost to better strategy. By understanding which signals matter, when to act, and how to respond, financial institutions can transform from market participants to market leaders.

The question isn’t whether to compete in HELOC consolidation—the continental drift of consumer debt makes that inevitable. The question is whether you’ll interpret the signals correctly and act strategically before competitors capture the next $73 million.

Learn more

By Devon Kinkead

Prescreen marketing looks like a slam dunk: millions of consumers carry high-interest debt, sit on untapped home equity, or are primed for consolidation. Yet despite the potential, most prescreen campaigns fizzle. Conversion rates hover in the low single digits, or fractions thereof, while competitors scoop up the very prospects you’e identified and reached out to.

The problem isn’t the concept — it’s the execution. Too many institutions still treat prescreen like a blunt instrument: broad offers, generic messaging, slow processes, and little follow-through with zero optimization. In today’s market, that just won’t cut it.

The good news? By applying structured problem-solving methods and great technology — the same kind used in top consulting firms and operational excellence programs — banks and credit unions can turn prescreen marketing into a repeatable growth engine.

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The Prescreen Success Checklist

Here’s a step-by-step framework you can embed directly into your campaign planning:

1. Scope & Goals
   • Define what success looks like: loan volume, share of wallet, primacy, or long-term profitability.
   • Segment by creditworthiness and geography.
   • Benchmark current performance (conversion rates, cost per acquisition, loss to competitors).
2. Diagnose the Gaps
   • Use tools like the 5 Whys or a simple issue tree to uncover why prospects aren’t converting.
   • Audit your data quality: Is it fresh, predictive, and clean?
3. Form Hypotheses
   • Example: If we personalize offers with projected savings in dollars, conversion in Segment X will improve by 20%.
   • Design pilots to test these ideas.
4. Fix the Friction
   • Automate prescreening and offer generation.
   • Cut time from offer to funding to under 24 hours.
   • Bake compliance into the process so it doesn’t slow you down.
5. Sharpen the Message
   • Tie offers to real needs: consolidation, cash-flow relief, flexibility.
   • Use behavioral triggers — like debt utilization or life events — to time offers for when customers are most receptive.
6. Measure What Matters
   • Track: response rate, competitor win/loss, funded loan amount, usage of credit lines, CPA, profitability, and customer satisfaction.
   • Run A/B tests on messaging, channel, and offer structure after optimizing for behavioral economics.
7. Align & Scale
   • Ensure marketing, underwriting, and product teams share incentives that go beyond raw acquisition.
   • Pilot in one region, refine, then expand.
   • Move from one-off campaigns to continuous, always-on engagement.

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From Missed Opportunity to Market Edge

The institutions that win in prescreen marketing don’t just “blast offers.” They diagnose root causes, test relentlessly, streamline execution, and build feedback loops for constant improvement.

Think of this checklist as your field guide. Apply it campaign after campaign, and you’ll do more than improve response rates — you’ll deepen relationships, grow share of wallet, and future-proof your lending business.

Prescreen isn’t the future. It’s the battlefield. And with the right system, you can win. Prescreen smarter, not harder.

Learn more