Case Study: Altra Federal Credit Union achieves 2.5x increase in auto‑approvals (6.7x for personal loans*) with Zest AI

Efficiency and automation are the Altra-mate goals

Altra Federal Credit Union was building a new digital lending platform and needed to automate more decisions to double loan volume within 10 years and reduce human interaction from application to approval. Their manual underwriting process and reliance on national scores limited growth and their ability to serve members in low income communities; they engaged Zest AI to provide an AI-driven underwriting solution to improve member experience, efficiency, and say yes more without taking on additional risk.

Working with Zest AI, Altra built a new AI underwriting model trained and validated on 50 months of prior loans—parsing thousands of raw bureau variables to select nearly 150 features that better predict delinquencies and enable fully automated decisioning. The results from Zest AI include a 6.7x increase in auto-approvals for personal loans*, a 2.5x increase in auto-approvals across all consumer portfolios, a 1.8x increase in auto-decisioning for personal loans*, and a 1.3x increase in auto-decisioning across all consumer portfolios, driving greater inclusivity and efficiency.

Altra Federal Credit Union