Traditional automation can no longer keep up with today’s banking pressures. To close the gap between AI investment and real business value, lenders must shift to agentic automation—reshaping how loans are originated, processed, and closed.
In a recent webinar hosted by American Banker, leaders from UiPath, Lake Michigan Credit Union (LMCU), and Greenlight Consulting discussed the critical challenges facing financial institutions today, and how to modernize the loan origination process in an era of increasing pressures and rising customer expectations.
Below we break down the key themes explored in the webinar and how Greenlight Consulting can automate loan origination for financial agencies.
Loan Origination: Challenges and Opportunities
The banking sector is currently facing a unique set of challenges. Despite record profits for some, investors are still skeptical, and a financial agency’s size no longer guarantees success. Specifically, in the realm of Home Equity Lines of Credit (HELOC), demand is surging. HELOC balances rose 7.2% YoY, with home equity borrowing hitting $25B in Q1 2025—the highest in 17 years.
However, the operational reality for many lenders is grim. Origination remains costly, slow, and labor-intensive. Closing a HELOC averages 39 days, frustrating borrowers and causing 50% of applications to drop. Labor accounts for 70% of costs due to repetitive work.
The Evolution of Automated Loan Origination
Agencies addressing lending inefficiencies need goal-based agents, which go beyond simple bots by planning, integrating tools, understanding context, and refining actions.
This shift allows for Agentic Orchestration, where robots, humans, and AI agents are unified on a single platform. Instead of just automating isolated tasks, agents can orchestrate entire journeys.
For example, in a loan origination workflow, an agent can autonomously gather and integrate data across multiple systems, providing collective guidance and reports with clear data sources.
Revolutionizing the Loan Origination Process
The impact of agentic automation technology on the lending lifecycle is profound. Manual workflows require reviewing documents, validating them, updating LOS, and performing risk calculations—an error-prone, time-consuming process.
With agentic orchestration, the workflow is streamlined drastically:
- Intelligent Processing: Robots read application documents and update the LOS automatically.
- Autonomous Checks: Agents handle eligibility analysis, investigation of policies, and parallel validation checks.
- Human-in-the-Loop: Humans are brought in only for high-value tasks, such as reviewing escalations or making final judgment calls.
Agentic orchestration eliminates manual errors, streamlines customer experiences, and enables 24/7 scalable operations.
Lake Michigan Credit Union Modernizes Loan Origination
The benefits of agentic automation are already playing out in practice. Lake Michigan Credit Union (LMCU), working with Greenlight Consulting and UiPath, streamlined their HELOC process using agentic workflows.
The impact was immediate. By automating redisclosure tasks, LMCU eliminated invalid requests and saved an estimated 3,400 hours annually. The initiative also helped the team meet service level agreements (SLAs) more consistently and reduce overall loan processing times.
As CIO Chris Ortega noted, specialized agents handling address verification, liability checks, and compliance reviews significantly reduced loan timelines and increased loan volume—allowing staff focus on high-impact decisions and member engagement.
The Future of Loan Origination, Powered by Greenlight
In a market defined by speed, accuracy, and compliance, the ability to automate loan origination is a competitive advantage. For modern lenders, embracing the agentic future isn’t optional—it’s essential.
Greenlight Consulting helps banks and credit unions automate loan origination with agentic workflows—freeing teams to focus on risk and member experience.
Ready to streamline loan origination with agentic automation? Schedule a consultation with our team.
