Alliant Credit Union headquarters in Chicago. Credit/Alliant Credit Union
Alliant Credit Union first mortgages have been rising at a fast clip since launching a new direct lending program more than two years ago.
Alliant was the ninth-largest credit unon with $20 billion in assets as of June 30, and serves its 924,926 members almost entirely digitally. Its only retail office is at its Chicago headquarters.
The idea for the program had been hatched by 2022, and Dan Bauer, a Chicagoland native who had spent most of his career in mortgage lending, was hired as Alliant’s vice president of residential lending in September 2022.
Alliant launched its new direct lending program for first mortgages in early 2023. It launched a digital direct lending platform and a new loan origination system. It expanded its product offerings to include FHA, VA, doctor loans and construction loans.
“The implementation of a new direct lending platform was key to that initiative, overhauling our legacy loan origination systems and implementing a single system of record for all one to four family originations,” Bauer said in an interview with CU Times.
Bauer said it has also added more than 40 people to its mortgage lending, nearly doubling the personnel in the department.
“Almost everybody we hired was external,” Bauer said. “We brought in a lot of external new talent to complement the existing talent that existed within the organization. Most of those areas were sales roles or operations roles that we brought in, along with a few new leaders within the residential lending division.”
NCUA data from Callahan’s Peer Suite showed Alliant originated $424.4 million in first mortgages in 2023. In 2024, that number tripled to $1.3 billion. In the first half of this year, it produced $988 million, triple the originations in 2024’s first half and six times the $159.4 million in 2023’s first half.
Alliant said it closed $145.7 million in June alone, its largest month ever.
“The vast majority of originations on this new platform have been non-members of Alliant. Meaning we've gone externally to the market, we've brought them into Alliant ecosystem,” he said.
Bauer said Alliant's previous mortgage lending strategy was primarily indirect through a national correspondent lending program.
In the direct lending program, Alliant loan officers often receive referrals from the real estate community and elsewhere, and it initiates contact with the borrowers by phone. Alliant has developed “a fully digital end-to-end mortgage application where we can send those referrals to [Alliant’s] website, allow them to apply, become pre-qualified or initiate their application if they're ready to do so.”
Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data showed Alliant’s originations in 2024 had tended to go to wealthier borrowers than most in CU Times' sample of 34 of the largest credit union mortgage producers.
Alliant’s average loan was $517,630, up 14% from 2023, and 9% of the number of its loans went to the relatively poor: Borrowers whose household income was less than 80% of the median household income in their county. For the entire sample, it was 15%.
Bauer said while Alliant’s members tend to be more affluent than those at many other credit unions, it is committed to helping lower-income members buy homes.
“We've got a very healthy mix of programs at all income levels and we are very dedicated and focused on building and continuing to build opportunities for first time home buyers in the market,” he said. “That is absolutely part of our value proposition.”
Contact Jim DuPlessis at JDuPlessis@cutimes.com.
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