Case Study: Altra Federal Credit Union achieves 22% more approvals and 4x auto-decisioning with Zest AI

Increasing Approvals Without Adding Risk At Altra Federal Credit Union

Altra Federal Credit Union, a $2.2B credit union serving 125,000 members, faced a manual, FICO‑limited auto underwriting process that constrained growth as it built a new digital lending platform. To automate decisions, reduce human touchpoints, and “say yes” more often—especially for members in low‑income communities—Altra turned to AI‑driven lending from Zest AI.

Zest AI built and deployed an AI‑based underwriting model trained on 50 months of loan history, parsing thousands of raw bureau variables to select ~150 predictive features and enable fully automated decisioning. The Zest AI solution delivered a 22% increase in approvals with no added risk, generated roughly $1.5M in additional profit per annual vintage, and produced a 4× increase in the auto‑decisioning rate.

Altra Federal Credit Union

Mark Tierney

VP, Consumer Lending