As a client of Member Business Solutions, a Tallahassee-Fla.-based business lending and servicing CUSO, Franklin Mint, will be one of several credit unions participating in a six-week beta testing project of the nCino cloud-based bank operating system solution.

Live Oak Bank in Wilmington, N.C., spun off nCino as a separate software firm in February 2012 after bank executives developed the solution modeled after a Salesforce.com work flow cloud-based platform to streamline it business loan processing system, according to the CUSO.

Because of its growth, Live Oak executives saw that its loan processing pipeline was overwhelmed with documents that needed to be reviewed by a complex web of people and required employees to spend time walking desk from desk to monitor the status of their loans, the CUSO said. Moreover, the old process made it difficult for executives to monitor and manage their key metrics.

Based on metrics from Live Oak's experience, from start to close, nCino said its solution reduced the average time to process commercial loans from 65 days to 40 days.

Last August, MBS became the first CUSO to partner with nCino to offer its solution to its 80 member credit unions in 2015, according to nCino.

The Fort Worth-based Texas Business Lenders Group with its seven credit union owners and about 10 non-owner affiliate cooperatives, has also signed up with nCino, according to the CUSO.

"We feel this nCino system through MBS is going to substantially improve our processes," Quinn said. "We're very excited about it."

Through its business relationships with Live Oak, the $2.5 billion Northwest Federal Credit Union in Herndon, Va., got a first look at the solution before it was introduced to the marketplace. The cooperative said it realized a 15% to 20% improvement in its business loan process efficiencies.

Other credit unions have seen benefits as well. For example, since using the nCino solution, the $1.7 billion United Federal Credit Union in St. Joseph, Mich., grew its commercial loan portfolio from $70 million to $240 million without adding any back office employees, according to the CUSO.

Since nCino launched its business two years ago with Live Oak Bank as its sole customer, the software firm has grown and now serves 69 financial institutions and employs about 100 people. In April, nCino won NACUSO's 2014 Next Big Idea Competition.

"We made progress that was beyond my wildest dreams," Pierre Naudé, nCino CEO, said. "We've signed up 69 institutions and we have not lost a single customer."

But nCino is not resting on its laurels. Earlier this year, it decided to go after the CUSO market to reach more credit unions.

"Although there are more than 6,000 credit unions, only about 160 credit unions are big enough to invest in the software," Naudé explained. "For smaller credit unions, it may not be economical for them to implement their own nCino solutions."

As another entry point, nCino said it is tapping CUSOs to upgrade their business loan processing systems that serve member credit unions and making the solution more affordable for midsize cooperatives.

MBS President Jim Gallagher said he made it part of his job to search the marketplace every two or three years to find a software solution that would make the CUSO's business lending process more efficient. During that 11-year journey, he hadn't found it until he met with nCino executives at a conference.

"nCino was the first one that, right at the first demo, I realized this was a better mousetrap for us," Gallagher said. "It was the first product that when we compared it to what we had internally, it was much better."

Ryal Tayloe, an nCino vice president, said CUSOs such as MBS and Texas Business Lenders Group are constantly looking to improve their communications with member credit unions about where their business loans are in the pipeline, turn around their credit recommendations more quickly, and scale their technology platform as their business expands.

The nCino solution will enable both the CUSOs and their member credit unions to work on one system that ties together loan origination, underwriting, document management, member relationship management and portfolio administration, according to nCino.

"Both sides are on the same page, there is less back and forth, better communication overall, which translates to better service to members and the business loans get in the hands of the members more quickly," Tayloe said.

Gallagher said one of the features he is looking forward to providing member credit unions is the self-service function. For business loans under $50,000, credit unions will be allowed to run the application in the nCino platform without MBS involvement.

"Depending on what capability credit unions have on their end, they will be able to run their business loans under $50,000 quickly and it will certainly be less expensive," Gallagher said.

MBS also plans to offer two options to its credit union members to access the nCino platform, the Florida-based CUSO said. The first would enable credit unions to upload all of their commercial loan files and monitor their progress as they move through the system from start to finish. The second option would give them access to become full license users of the nCino solution that provides a CRM tool and other features that will give credit unions maximum transparency of the entire system.

Texas Business Lenders Group is in the nCino implementation process and expects to start offering the solution to member credit unions during the second quarter of 2015.

"We anticipate the synergies provided by the communication and integration of systems and information, between credit unions and [our] CUSO will improve our ability to shorten the time gap between a member's loan application at the credit union branch and their actual execution of loan documents/loan closing by 75% to 80%," Robert Campbell, president/CEO of the Texas Business Lenders Group, said.

Additionally, nCino will enable the credit unions to better view, holistically, its members' various loan and deposit products and in turn, improve the credit unions ability to anticipate and serve the actual needs of its business member relationships rather than misdirecting its marketing or product emphasis, Campbell explained.