Consistency and Efficiency for a Growing Towne

The Challenge

Early on, the team at TowneBank realized they needed a partner to help them continue their growth trajectory as loan volumes increased and customer expectations were evolving. In the early 2000s, they chose to partner with Baker Hill along with FICO’s Small Business Scoring Service to leverage automated decisioning to streamline those small business loan requests.

Over the years, TowneBank continued to grow both organically and by acquiring different local banks. As mergers occurred, it became apparent that each had a different method for originating loans. For instance, one market used spreadsheets and other manual processes for originating loans, while others used different systems from other vendors.

The Solution

After launching a selection committee and evaluating multiple loan origination systems, TowneBank ultimately chose to transition from the legacy Baker Hill solutions they had been using for almost 20 years to Baker Hill NextGen® in 2022 because of Baker Hill’s ability to provide a full advisory service team as well as a single, unified solution to support the future of small business lending along with the needs of commercial bankers in all of their respective markets.

John P. Baiocco, Senior Executive Vice President of TowneBank, worked closely with Baker Hill from the beginning of the partnership. “After speaking with several other banks who were using Baker Hill NextGen® and attending the company’s user conference, Prosper, our team at TowneBank knew they were the right partner for us and expanding our relationship into the commercial side of our business just made sense,” said Baiocco.

TowneBank had different phases of implementation as it adopted Baker Hill NextGen®, including preparing its legacy system for the transition, followed by implementing the company’s Exception Tracking and Statement Spreading solutions. Then, TowneBank implemented Baker Hill NextGen® Small Business and Consumer Lending, followed by Commercial Lending.

The Results

Since partnering with Baker Hill in the early 2000s and revamping its lending processes, TowneBank has seen great success and significant growth.

With the Baker Hill NextGen® product suite, TowneBank has already been able to standardize its loan origination processes across the board. In addition to standardization, the bank was able to work with Baker Hill to enhance their segmentation strategy for small business loans, driving further efficiencies in the origination and decisioning process while keeping their commitment to local decision-making. Using Baker Hill’s technology and advisory services, the bank was able to establish consistent, standardized credit processes based on TowneBank’s guidelines, product lines, and market demands.

With the help of Baker Hill, TowneBank also developed an intuitive banking application for small business loans which was not offered before — expanding the collaboration among all TowneBank employees regardless of their business lending experience levels. Through this banker application, TowneBank can move loans through the origination process according to the established, rules-based structure, guided with conversational prompted questions that ensure that the borrower’s need and the bank’s credit requirements are both addressed. Borrowers can also upload documents securely through a portal for an easier lending experience. This experience is then integrated with Baker Hill NextGen® where the bank’s exception tracking has also improved because it’s now a rules-driven workflow, which eliminates the need to manually input tracking items and helps improve compliance with the bank’s credit policies as those documents are uploaded.

TowneBank has enhanced the member experience through speed to commitment, speed to closing, and ease of use for bankers and borrowers. Lenders are able to focus more of their efforts on supporting members, identifying new sales opportunities and closing deals rather than spending hours in the back-office on time-consuming, manual tasks such as inputting redundant data and tracking policy exceptions.