Farm Bureau Bank selects nCino for loan originations

Farm Bureau Bank is implementing tech from cloud-based fintech nCino for commercial and retail loans, treasury management services and deposit accounts to operate across one platform.  

Farm Bureau Bank signed with nCino on Oct. 31, 2022, to move parts of the bank’s operations to a cloud environment to better align functionalities, Mark Cromer, chief operations and technology officer at Farm Bureau Bank, told Equipment Finance News. 

“One of the primary objectives was to have a single platform across all channels, across all products and across all customer types,” Cromer said. “We want people to get comfortable with Farm Bureau Bank, and whether they open up a deposit account or a loan, we want them to be familiar with the online presence. It should look the same.” 

Farm Bureau Bank was looking for one platform that would satisfy operations for retail and commercial loans and deposits, he said, noting that the processes have previously been executed in house. In fact, Cromer said in April 2022 at the Auto Finance Innovation Summit in San Diego that the bank would be spending 15 times more on technology to modernize its loan systems but did not specify a dollar amount. 

“We felt [nCino’s] platform gave us the opportunity to put a backbone in place that would satisfy all the things that we wanted to do,” Cromer said. “We bought the commercial loan module, treasury management module, retail loans module and deposits module. We have a roughly 18-month to two-year plan to implement those modules.” 

Farm Bureau Bank is starting the implementation process with nCino by building out the commercial module because the bank does not have a commercial platform, he said, noting treasury management is slated to be implemented next with retail loans and then deposits following.  

“We hope to be generating [commercial] loans off the nCino platform by the fourth quarter of this year,” Cromer said. “I hope to be making new retail loans [through the platform] by the third quarter of 2024.” 

The Sparks, Nev.-based bank will be using nCino’s loan technology from consumer application to when the loan hits the bank’s portfolio, including underwriting, he said.  

“This investment is going to streamline our operations and get some efficiencies, but it also allows us to reach more prospects in our market because of having a better customer experience for customer direct relationships,” Cromer said.  

The bank will continue to rely on its insurance agents to refer business to the lending side, he said. 

“We have developed a portal that facilitates the agent’s involvement in the process, allowing the agents to both submit applications and check the status on applications, so we will still maintain that,” Cromer said. 

Farm Bureau Bank also utilizes fintech Finastra for its core banking application and software company Q2 for digital servicing, he said. 

“This is not automating what [we] do, this is transforming what [we] do,” Cromer said. “This is going to change the way we work. … Change management will be something that we’re going to have to deal with as we go through the process.” 

The move follows Arvest Bank, who in May rolled out a new cloud-native equipment lending platform with ThoughtMachine.