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The importance of loans to small banks probably can't be overstated, but the process can be cumbersome and last weeks. There's no shortage of artificial intelligence tools to help lenders speed the process, but how do you know which ones to trust? Ryan Hildebrand, chief innovation officer for Connecticut-based Bankwell Bank, likes to go straight to the fintech source.
"We're usually the first customer for a lot of these startups," Hildebrand said in an interview. "We're able to help them create their software the way that banks need it to work, but understand that they've got to build stuff quickly, too." One of these early collaborations was with two Stanford MBA grads who specialized in AI. Hildebrand persuaded them to focus on small-business loans rather than mortgages and the Casca lending platform was born.
But back to the origination process. By embedding pre-approval functions and using AI to help generate credit memos, Bankwell has been able to cut its origination time from one to two weeks to one to two days. That's driving a big part of the growth in this part of the bank, which saw about $10 million in SBA loans four years ago but is on track to do over $100 million this year, Hildebrand said.
"That's kind of our strategy, find early companies and learn and do more with them as we go," he said.
Another pilot that's worked well according to Hildebrand is with Crux Analytics, which helps Bankwell find new customers for its community lending business. Bankwell's efficiency ratio—how many cents it takes a bank to earn a dollar of revenue—fell to 50.8 in the fourth quarter 2025 from 56.4 in the year-earlier quarter. Bankwell Financial Group, the firm's parent company, has seen its shares rise 53 percent in the past year.
What comes away from Hildebrand when you speak to him is he sees the bank as a shark—if it stops moving, it'll die. At the same time, the slowness of the pilot system has been crucial in building trust in the AI tools Bankwell is using, Hildebrand said. "For us to remain relevant and for us to remain independent we have to lean into things."
Hildebrand works remotely from his 75-acre ranch that's southwest of Portland, Oregon, where he and his wife tend horses, sheep and chickens. He knows the competitive world of small banking is a lot like ranching; you must stay in front of it, you can't let things go.
"The only mistake we can make is not doing something," Hildebrand said.
