Loan Application Portal Redesign
Renew Financial specializes in offering property owners affordable financing for renewable energy and energy efficient projects through the PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) Program.
Situation
95% of applications for home improvement financing secured through Renew Financial are initiated by contractors on behalf of their homeowner clients. The existing loan application process would take no less than 30 minutes and often, significantly longer. For a contractor who is trying to close a deal, this was highly problematic and often resulted in them losing the project. It also eroded their confidence and trust in working with Renew.
Challenges
Renew’s existing loan origination system (LOS) relied on manual intervention at each step of the application flow and would take no less than 30 minutes (often longer) to get to approval. These “checks” were performed by a Renew operations team member who had to reference multiple data sources to gather the information and then conduct research in the instances when an issue was found.
The web portal was built on an antiquated system that didn’t leverage current web standards or functionality. The site was very slow and could not be accessed on mobile devices which was problematic for users who were working with homeowners at the property where the improvements would take place. Internally, the site was difficult to maintain and because of the nature of the financing product, regular updates would come in from local, state and government offices that needed to be implemented in a set period of time.
Approach
Prior to my joining the team, a decision was made to build a new loan origination system that would automate underwriting tasks and accelerate loan approval time.
The project to design the new system had been in process for 2 years with very little to show. A new product team (of which I was a member) was brought in to accelerate the work and launch the new system within a year of the project re-launch. The previous team had engaged a 3rd party developer with a turn-key solution, however as the project progressed, it was found that their product could not accommodate Renew’s needs without significant customization and compromise.
As the lead UX designer for the external facing (contractor) experience, I chose a mobile-first design approach to accommodate users who were in the field and away from their office while providing an equally rewarding experience for those sitting in front of their computer.
In addition to focusing on the mobile experience, I also chose to design the flow to be linear and focussed on a single task at a time as this most closely reflected the actual application process and reduced the clutter and uncertainty which was prevalent in the existing system.
Because the project was running behind due to the previous product team’s lack of productivity, we were not able to conduct formal user interviews to gather requirements. Design exploration began immediately based on anecdotal feedback about the existing experience solicited by the project manager prior to my engagement. The risk of this approach was mitigated by the team conducting regular design reviews with the internal sales team to ensure the design was always moving in the right direction and course-correcting as needed.
Unfortunately, the project was not as simple as designing the best experience for the users as the 3rd party developer’s tool was not suited to Renew’s unique loan application requirements. This led the product and ux team to collaborate with the developer to adapt their tool to more closely meet the needs of Renew, compromising aspects of the design as needed to deliver a functioning loan application system.
Results
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The new system shortened the application process to as quickly as 15 minutes, down from no less than 30 minutes with the previous tool
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Underwriting tasks for Title Check and Credit Review were automated, limiting manual intervention to only scenarios where potential disqualifying conditions were found
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Application process focused users on the task at hand, reducing clutter and confusion that was prevalent with the old tool
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Prominent visual clues and messaging keeps users fully aware of the application status for their property owner customers
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A flexible and extensible design allowed for streamlined enhancements and maintenance
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A mobile first design approach ensured that users could access full system capability from anywhere they had an internet connection
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An intuitive and easy to navigate application flow eliminated the need for daily RF Sales involvement, freeing them up for other business development tasks
