Case Study: Coastal Credit Union achieves 43% more auto‑decisioning and $12M annual profit with Zest AI

Sailing into deeper lending with smarter, faster automation

Coastal Credit Union, a $4.9B institution serving about 300K members, needed to expand lending down the credit spectrum without adding risk or harming member experience. Relying on national scores and the MeridianLink Consumer rules engine made it difficult to underwrite below Tier A paper, so they turned to Zest AI to bring more data and better modeling to their underwriting.

Zest AI built an AI-driven credit model with roughly 10x more variables, giving a much more accurate view of lower-tier applicants and enabling greater automation. The partnership produced a 43% increase in auto‑decisioning and a 35% increase in auto‑approvals across consumer portfolios, approximately $12M in additional profit per year and $150M in annual originations; Coastal’s auto portfolio specifically saw a 90% rise in auto‑approvals and a 71% increase in auto‑decisioning.

Coastal Credit Union