New Tools for Credit Unions and Banks to Assess the Health of their Lending Portfolio

Credit unions and small to mid-sized banks, ask yourself this question:

Is your organization struggling with limited resources and time to assess your lending portfolio, identify new opportunities, and pinpoint segments that present increased risk?

We hear these concerns often - especially from smaller lending organizations. You want to deepen your member and customer relationships, while at the same time manage risk. But there may not be enough people or hours in the day for your organization to dissect your lending portfolios. 

As we head toward 2025, we see continued inflation, but likely a decreasing rate environment. No one knows how consumers will respond to these changes. That means you need quicker insight about your portfolios and whether you are on par with the market. You need to know which segments are seeking new credit so you don’t miss out on opportunities to grow relationships. Plus stay on top of payment behaviors across all loans - or find out if new risks are around the corner.

This all sounds like a big, big task. But, there is a new solution that requires no tech or data work on your side. It’s called the Portfolio Insights Dashboard powered by Equifax Ignite and it will make your portfolio reviews a piece of cake ! The dashboard will help you better understand the health of your lending portfolio and compare performance to other lenders. Plus, it can give you a detailed view of your member and customer segments, including their credit needs and debt payment behaviors. 

Sit down and grab a slice - It’s so easy to get started with the Portfolio Insights Dashboard

The Portfolio Insights Dashboard is ready for immediate use by your team. No figuring out what data you need to provide, no loading files, and no waiting months before you can get your hands on the data. 

And, if you have been skipping reviews of certain tradelines, you can now cross that off your list. 

Here’s why: the Portfolio Insights Dashboard is powered by Equifax Ignite, our unified data and analytics ecosystem. That means that the dashboard can provide insights about your entire lending portfolio - including all of your members and customers that hold any major lending products at your organization, such as auto loans, credit cards, mortgage, HELOCs, personal loans, student loans, and more. The dashboard also provides insights on loans that your members and customers hold at other traditional lending organizations. We'll talk more about what you can do with a more comprehensive view of credit activity in a bit.  

If you think you will be looking at columns and columns of data, that is most definitely not the case. Instead, you can glean quick insights with charts and graphs and visualize breakdowns for each of your tradelines and segments. Plus, you can track performance and trends over time.

Now it’s time to take a bite: Assess your portfolio and how it is performing compared to other lenders

You might ask, does the dashboard provide data for the types of criteria that we evaluate as part of a typical portfolio review? The answer is yes , and likely much more than you typically  assess.

For example, you can start by choosing a specific tradeline. Then evaluate that tradeline’s loan holders by risk segment, from super-prime down to deep subprime. Dig in deeper to analyze risk segments by total balance, APR, and other measures. Also take a look at delinquencies. How do delinquencies compare across risk segments? Is it what you expected? 

The dashboard is also a great way to boost your competitive insights. Namely, you can benchmark your portfolio metrics against those of competitors and gain quick answers to questions such as:

• Do you hold a higher percent of super-prime and prime consumers in your auto portfolio compared to peers? 

• How do your delinquencies compare to other lenders, and how are they trending over time? 

Make the most of the icing: Spot new opportunities and risks with “off-you” insights

The icing is always the best part of the cake (at least for me!). And when it comes to the dashboard, the icing is what you can learn about your members’ and customers’ credit activity at other firms. A more holistic view of credit behaviors can help you identify pockets of opportunity and risk.

First, the opportunity side. When it comes to retention and share of credit wallet, the dashboard is at your service. That’s because you can use it to identify segments within your portfolio that offer an opportunity to expand relationships. 

For example, you can discover segments that have a high percentage of consumers that have inquired about obtaining a new credit line at another firm. With this inquiry data, you can better predict levels of credit demand and what products consumers are seeking. Then, you can collaborate with your marketing group to evaluate delivering competitive offers to these in-market segments. Inquiry data can be especially beneficial for credit unions (and other lenders) to help expand relationships with members, especially amongst members that only hold one product, such as those that joined specifically to access a new auto loan.

On the flipside, you need to proactively identify pockets of increased risk. Here’s how the dashboard can help. You already know your top performing segments - likely your super-prime and prime loan holders. But with the dashboard, you can dig into these segments to spot hidden risk. For example, you might find that one of your prime segments has been missing payments and has high delinquency rates for loans held at other firms. In fact, their off-us delinquency rates are more in-line with what you see for your subprime segments. Watch out for that curveball! You have just discovered a segment that could present future risk for your organization. 

My recommendation: Eat cake often. In other words, use the Portfolio Insights Dashboard frequently.
The economy - and your members’ and customers’ wallets - never stop changing. There are up- periods where credit demand is high and the health of your lending portfolios is strong. And there are down periods where consumers struggle with debt commitments and your portfolios look a little more rocky. 

With the Portfolio Insights Dashboard, it’s easy to regularly review your portfolio and better manage these economic swings. Plus, you have the chance to identify segments that offer opportunities to grow relationships or that show elevated risk. With these insights, you can confidently and consistently modify your plans. And you will be able to better capitalize on growth opportunities, as well as integrate current risk data into strategic analytics, collections efforts, and debt reserve decisions.

Learn more about the Portfolio Insights Dashboard, discover how more frequent account reviews can help you increase cost savings, and connect with us to request a demo.