Smartbiz Loans
As a Senior Product Designer on the Loan Processing & Funding team, I worked on the internal loan servicing platform, used by internal reps and lending partners to review and approve loans for small businesses.
Company
Smartbiz Loans
Dates
2020-2023
Role
Sr. Product Designer
Skills
End-to-End Design
PROJECT —
Credit Assistant
A more streamlined and contextual approach to the Credit Memo that resulted in simpler preparation, smoother handoffs and faster approvals.
Opportunity
A major source of friction and frustration in the loan review process was the Credit Memo — a document containing key details about the loan and borrowing business — which involved a lot of manual work, redundant tasks, and back and forth between teams to prepare and get the details right for each bank. This was slowing down the decision process, and delaying funds for customers.
Goal/Challenge
The business wanted to take over the preparation process internally, in order to simplify and help speed up the bank review process. This meant identifying opportunities to streamline and standardize the work for the internal team, while ensuring everything still met the needs and regulatory standards of the banks.
My Role & Process
As the sole designer on this project, I owned the end-to-end design process. I drove a multi-part discovery phase to deeply understand the problem space from different perspectives, partnered with product, engineering, and business stakeholders to define the experience vision and product strategy, then worked iteratively to bring the new experience to life, gathering feedback from expert users along the way.
Solution & Impact
The new “Credit Assistant” workflow tool completely reimagined the Credit Memo experience, from preparation and approval to the final document. I designed a shared canvas with role-based contexts to establish a source of truth between teams, improve the notes writing experience, and give the banks more control over the final output. The result was a more trustworthy and efficient process, and a Credit Memo that better aligned with the needs of the banks.
PROJECT —
Loan Validation Assistant
A data and document review tool that leveraged AI and automation to process PPP loans at scale
Opportunity
During the pandemic, the business had shifted its focus from traditional SBA and Term loans to Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans — a government funded relief effort to help keep small businesses open. While the application process for PPP loans was a lot lighter in terms of requirements, the team was receiving a much higher volume of loans than they were used to or prepared for.
Goal/Challenge
The operations team wanted to automate the review process as much possible in order to keep up with the increasing demand.
Data and Engineering had started experimenting with AI/ML models to extract and interpret customer inputs and documents. They developed a prototype to automate data checks and calculations, but it was more confusing than helpful for reps to use in their day-to-day workflows.
My Role & Process
I partnered with Product and Engineering (triad) to identify opportunities to shape the prototype into an experience that better aligned with the immediate needs of our reps. In just a few short weeks, we developed a new proof of concept, then worked closely with the operations team to test, iterate and integrate it into the PPP loan review process.
Solution & Impact
The new and improved Loan Validation Assistant presented applicant data and documents in a side-by-side layout for easy comparison, and leveraged automated checks and insights to help reps make faster decisions with higher confidence. It became a central part of the PPP loan review process, and enabled the operations team to quickly scale to meet their goals.