Pioneer Military Credit Accelerates its Business with Symphonix and CloudKaptan

The Challenge

With decades of banking under his belt, Brown and Pioneer’s leadership team knew they needed to modernize the lending experience for their customers. After working with a few different core systems over the last 20 years, Brown wanted something else. “Modifications took six to nine months—and that’s when we could get them on the roadmap. Otherwise, it was at least a year. We requested a modification for the system to draw out payments one business day early whenever they were pre-scheduled to fall on a holiday or weekend. That change took about nine months and $300,000 to implement.

“Everything was basically duct-taped to the core and couldn’t flow between systems or provide latency. Although some parts of the origination were automated, it still involved a lot of manual tasks behind the scenes.

“As a fintech-type company, we knew we needed a nimble partner. We wanted configurability rather than hard coding to make system updates quickly.” Pioneer left no stone unturned when looking for the right partner, ultimately selecting Symphonix.

The Solution

After deploying Symphonix, Brown says, “It’s been light years ahead of everything we’d been doing before. Everything is configurable with a couple of clicks. We were scaled almost immediately.

“The lending automation is incredible. With our old system, we spent a decade bringing it to automation metrics of 80% or 90%. With Symphonix, we’re already at about 88% automation, meaning that any denials happen automatically for the most part. Everything else is automated with built-in triggers, either for identity or military status, that need manual review."

With his eye on customer satisfaction, Brown has received very positive reviews. “Our customers are extremely happy. They love the fact that they can get in, apply, get approved, and book their loan within five to ten minutes. They receive their money either that same day or the next morning. It’s all Symphonix making that possible, and that’s a huge part of our business.”

Implementation

Pioneer has been working with Symphonix’s partner CloudKaptan to make changes and refinements to the Symphonix system. Once again, Brown is impressed. “Updating our whole lending flow took CloudKaptan 30 to 45 days. Everything has been efficient. I don’t think we’ve had a modification that took more than 45 days. What we thought would take months, they’ve been able to turn around in weeks. 

“The dashboards let us see things in real time so we’re always monitoring. They’ve fixed and configured everything to the point now where we only have minor one-offs.

“I’m coming from a banking space where this is hugely abnormal. That type of attention—and the expedited time to market—it’s just not normal. We’re in production within 30 to 45 days, which, to me, is fabulous. I’ve never seen that in my life. It’s night-and-day different.”

Rich isn’t the only person at Pioneer taking notice of the transformation. Pioneer CEO Aaron Handke says, “Symphonix is the best software company with the best process I’ve been involved with in any of the startups I’ve done in my career.

“This was our first collaboration with military financial solutions and it was truly a delightful experience working with them and supporting their mission,” said CloudKaptan Managing Director, Manoj Agarwal.  “We are excited to continue working with them as an extended team and celebrate many milestones together.”

The Results

• “Lightning fast” configurability: Before, modifications took more than nine months. Now they can be done in 45 days or less.
• Customer touch points tailored by users: Customers drive their own level of engagement by choosing self-service or customer support.
• End-to-end automation speed loan process for customers: Loan offers in seconds, decisions in minutes, funding that day or the following morning.
• Scalable system gives a larger footprint while reducing need for additional staffing: Fewer employees are needed to quickly expand into new markets