Finance | Service Design | B2B | Process Transformation
Commercial Lending: 89 Days to 5
Client
Commonwealth Bank
Timeline
6 months
Role
Lead Strategic Designer
Overview & Challenge
Commonwealth Bank needed to transform their commercial lending experience by reimagining the borrowing process for business customers. The existing system was taking an average of 89 days to process loans, creating significant frustration for customers and lost business opportunities. Our challenge was to simplify and transform the end-to-end lending experience while reworking processes, technology, and policy components.
Key Challenges
- Complex, lengthy application process frustrating both customers and staff
- Disconnected systems limiting visibility and communication
- Rigid lending criteria not accounting for customer relationships
- Limited staff autonomy to make decisions for smaller, less risky deals
- Fragmented customer journey with poor communication touch points
My Approach & Contribution
After conducting intensive research with business owners, lending advisors, and brokers, I mapped the current state journey and identified critical pain points. Working closely with stakeholders, I identified key opportunities for transformation and led the redesign of the end-to-end process.
Key Activities
1. Conducted 20 customer and 27 staff interviews to understand pain points and needs
3. Created detailed journey maps showing both current and future state experiences
5. Designed new agent-customer dialogues to sync with business design and online flow
2. Facilitated multiple workshops with business, design, and IT teams to align on vision
4. Developed clickable prototypes demonstrating specific lending scenarios
6. Proposed innovative lending concepts including "Lending as a Loyalty Programme"
The team started believing we could change things for the better - and reduce the turnaround time from 89 days to 5 days, or maybe even less for simple customer cases. We explored ideas like pre-approving existing bank customers based on data they already had, requiring fewer documents initially, and giving on-the-spot decisions through seamless, automated processes.
Results & Impact
01
Reduced commercial lending process from 89 days to just 5 days for simple cases
03
Developed a future-state vision prototype showing diverse customer scenarios
05
Introduced innovative concepts like pre-approved funds and dynamic risk ratings
02
Transformed both customer and employee experiences through streamlined processes
04
Created a comprehensive approach accounting for human relationships, efficiency, and staff empowerment
Key Learnings
In financial services, the personal dimension outweighs the transactional. Business lending isn't just about money—it's about understanding entrepreneurs' aspirations, challenges, and unique circumstances. This human connection forms the foundation for truly effective financial relationships.
Transparency drives both efficiency and trust. Simplifying processes while maintaining clear communication about requirements and timelines creates a dual benefit: smoother operations for the institution and greater confidence for customers navigating complex financial decisions.
Staff empowerment directly impacts customer experience. When frontline employees have the right tools, clear authority, and proper training to make informed decisions, they provide dramatically better service. The most effective systems balance guidance with autonomy to address unique customer needs.
Approach Deep Dive
To understand the full scope of the lending challenge, we conducted comprehensive research with 20 customers and 27 staff members, establishing a shared understanding of pain points and improvement opportunities through collaborative workshops.
Current State Analysis
Customer Pain Points
- Lack of pricing clarity and transparency upfront
- Desire for more personalised, caring service relationships
- Need for simplified processes, especially for lower-risk applications
Staff Pain Points
- Overly complex processes for handling straightforward deals
- Limited visibility across the end-to-end lending journey
- Insufficient autonomy to make decisions and serve customers effectively
Ideation
Through focused workshops, we developed innovative concepts to dramatically reduce turnaround time:
Pre-approval for Existing Customers
- Leveraging existing data to pre-qualify customers before formal application
Simplified Documentation
- Reducing initial paperwork and shifting document collection post-approval
On-the-spot Decisions
- Creating seamless, automated processes for immediate lending decisions
Future State Service
Our future state design centred around three core principles:
1. Human-Centred Relationships
- Single point of contact, genuine care, and flexible criteria based on deep customer understanding
2. Streamlined Efficiency
- Clear commitments, transparent pricing, and responsive timelines
3. Empowered Staff
- Autonomous decision-making for smaller deals and targeted upskilling for customer-facing teams
Innovative Concepts
Two key innovations emerged from our process:
1. Lending as a Loyalty Programme
A model rewarding customer history with improved risk ratings and reduced documentation, allowing greater borrowing power based on established relationship metrics
2. Pre-Approved Funds Approach
A credit-card-like concept providing access to pre-approved amounts with dynamic interest rates adjusted as documentation is provided, focusing on the amount needed rather than complex product selection
We prototyped five scenarios covering simple to complex cases, from pre-approved existing customers to new-to-bank applications, demonstrating how these innovations could work in practice across different customer situations.