Clutch, a state-of-the art digital lending solution for Credit Unions, faced time-consuming and expensive challenges building the infrastructure to offer, transfer and refinance consumer loan products. By working with Method, Clutch has helped Credit Unions originate over $300M in funded loan volume across 50k+ members.

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‍Partnering with Method provides a detailed and real-time view of individual consumer debt, which allows Credit Unions to better identify cross-sell and consolidation opportunities. Clients are already seeing a lift in refinance applications, resulting in significant growth across the consumer lending business.
- Nicholas Hinrichsen, CEO, Clutch

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Method’s APIs: Clutch partnered with Method to provide a real-time account balance view for Credit Unions, enabling them to electronically pay-off existing debt for Credit Union members at the time of loan origination. Method’s real-time data APIs provide a comprehensive view of the consumer debt stack including what interest each consumer is paying on each of their credit lines, allowing Credit Unions to:

• Provide targeted pre-qualified offers at the time of loan origination or refinancing
• Better segment users
• Cross-sell relevant credit products 
• Access accurate balances for Consolidation loans and Direct electronic payoffs

Objective

Improve Credit Union cross-sell opportunities for new loan products.

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Approach

Pre-qualify members for debt consolidation and display all of the applicable loan products in an easy-to-compare user interface, based on CU rate sheets and consumer credit reports.

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Benefits for Credit Unions

• Real-time view of all liability for the consumer (Credit report does not give current snapshot)
• Real-time balances, including funding institutions and rates 
• Personalized offers that often lead to higher funded loan volume
• Massive ability to cross-sell a card or debt consolidation products

Benefits for Credit Union Members

• Drastically reduce user loan application and funded time. Credit Union Members are prequalified for accurate offers based on the current balances on their debt stack. Additionally, can decrease the loan funding time up to 70%. 
• Streamlined electronic payoff and disbursement improve member experience: Allow members to transfer balances from their existing cards at other financial institutions via an easy-to-use interface that displays their live card balances.
• Discover new products and offers that help users save on interests and fees by switching to financially healthy products.

North of 15% of our credit card applicants submit a refinance application. We’re already seeing the lift and we’re barely scratching the surface.
- Mia Lao, VP of Consumer Lending, Wings Financial

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Statistically Speaking

Increase Conversions: Nearly 1 in 2 applicants where Method surfaced high credit card debt successfully secured pre-approved debt-consolidation or a new credit card loan product. 

Automate Cross-sell Opportunities: Better segmentation & targeting improves cross-sell rates by up to 200%. 

Improved remarketing: Target consumers with the right message at the right time. CU’s have been able to carefully retarget members with high credit card balances rather than “spray and pray” methods.

Reduce Operating Expenses:

• Can reduce workloads up to 75% for loan officers & related staff
• Disburse funds directly to existing lenders
• Receive ready-to-fund applications directly in your Loan Origination System (LOS), complete with an ACH file
• Pay off their existing balances electronically, often in real-time, if they complete a balance transfer request

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Together, Clutch and Method are working to create the most frictionless debt consolidation and balance transfer experience that the Credit Union industry has seen.

About Clutch

Clutch builds loan applications and recapture portals for Credit Unions through intelligent and highly converting user experiences. Using integrated third party data sources, Clutch discovers debt their user’s applicants have elsewhere in real-time, resulting in an increased share of wallet for their users and thousands of dollars saved for their respective applicants.

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About Method Financial

Method Financial is an embedded banking service that makes it easy for financial institutions (FIs) to embed loan repayment, data, balance transfers, and bill pay automation into their user journey. Through a single API, FIs enable end-users to get a real-time view of their entire liability portfolio and pay off those liabilities in real-time. Method uses cutting edge solutions provided by telecom providers, credit bureaus, and banking cores for real-time identity verification, authentication and retrieval of financial data. Since launching in late 2021, Method has helped 150k+ users connect $11Bn+ in consumer debt to the financial institution of their choice.