Truliant Federal Credit Union automates 77% of personal loan approvals with Zest AI underwriting

Truliant was expanding rapidly, adding nine branches across Virginia and the Carolinas while keeping the same underwriting team. They needed to handle upwards of 30,000 loan applications per month without proportionally growing headcount. They also sought to remove unconscious bias from decisioning and fulfill their CDFI mandate to serve underbanked communities.

Truliant partnered with Zest AI to deploy AI-automated credit underwriting across auto, personal loan, credit card, and home equity portfolios. The implementation used MeridianLink as the LOS and Equifax as the credit bureau, with Zest's LuLu generative AI lending intelligence platform layered on top for real-time insights.

Truliant achieved a 2-3x increase in instant approvals and automation across their portfolios. They automated 68% of direct auto approvals, a meaningful portion of indirect auto approvals, 77% of personal loan approvals, and a significant share of credit card approvals. Loan decisioning time dropped from six hours exponentially, while delinquencies also fell.

• AI-automated underwriting enables credit unions to scale loan volume without scaling headcount, preserving resources for complex or high-touch member cases.
• Responsible AI can advance financial inclusion: Truliant used efficiency gains to fund CDFI initiatives combating payday lending in underserved communities.
• Removing model bias and improving speed simultaneously is achievable — faster decisions and fairer outcomes are complementary, not competing, goals.