Streamlined Point of Sale Due Diligence Earns Lender Charter Bank Approval
Initiating new point of sale (POS) lending partnerships comes with its own set of steps and challenges because of the due diligence needed to vet partners and evidence these actions.
When our client, a leader in nonprime customer credit, embarked on a POS partner journey, they knew that if they wanted this launch to succeed, they needed help.
Outsourcing Due Diligence Expertise to Earn Lender Charter Bank Approval
Recognizing they lacked resources and proficiency to build the due diligence program required for charter bank approval, the client asked Bridgeforce to provide that expertise. Over the years, this client had come to trust us and knew they could count on our guidance on process development, project organization and execution. Also, they experienced our ability to deliver results – often in tight timeframes. The client needed this critical skill because there would be two lines of business affected and 10 departments engaged in the due diligence activities.
Ensuring Approval for a Point of Sale Partnership with Charter Bank
Positioned to ‘hit the ground running’ and break down barriers to effectively mitigate implementation risks, we knew our role was to work as an extension of the client’s team—especially since they were in the midst of hiring management for the POS partnership. We set out to ensure approval with the charter bank. But we also had to build the client’s internal knowledge and expertise so that the handoff to newly hired staff would be comprehensive and smooth.
We decided to bring in our accelerators to help make rapid progress. Specifically, Bridgeforce has a proven project management methodology that sets a strong foundation for the work that needs to be accomplished. Our team has decades of experience in new product launches, which helped complete the overall effort within 12 weeks.
Finding Gaps, Enhancing Documentation and Providing Evidence for Charter Bank
Knowing that the client already had a project management arm, we spent time together at the start to define roles and responsibilities as well as any routines that were required as part of the PM effort.
Because POS partner documentation would be fed through a charter bank, Bridgeforce needed to review all current policies and procedures against charter bank requirements. Once gaps were identified we built new P&Ps or made updates to the existing batch.
When it came to reporting/evidencing the effort, we had to get up to speed on the client’s current reporting against what we expected and what was required. All reporting elements needed to work in concert to enable effective oversight and performance management. To establish due diligence to satisfy the charter bank, we pulled together a detailed verification matrix that included 68 components requiring verification to meet the charter bank’s due diligence expectations. Each component included 15 points of verification to be evidenced.
Additionally, the client asked us to work with the POS partners to build a framework for onboarding and develop onboarding documentation for verification to the charter bank.
Speedy Training to Sustain Team Progress
Our client recognized the need to have all elements in place and remain in place for the foreseeable future, so they requested that we build system training materials to support the charter bank’s workflow solution, which was new to the client. We built the training and trained the team over 15 hours.
Point of Sale Partnership: Approved
Ultimately the project granted the lender charter bank approval as a new POS lending partner with their due diligence and onboarding framework in place. They were able to do this by showing a seamless process and system workflow that enabled all client stakeholders to review POS partner documentation and provide evidence that due diligence was completed. As a result, the client now anticipates a rate of 25% growth each year through 2025.
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