Bethpage Federal Credit Union in Bethpage, New York, is working with the financial technology firm Scienaptic AI to bolster its loan decisioning capabilities.
The $11.5 billion-asset credit union first began partnership talks with the New York fintech last year to develop and test machine learning credit risk models within its consumer lending portfolio.
Using these models, "we would be able to safely say yes to more loans that would have otherwise been declined using traditional credit scores as the main metric,” said John Witterschein, vice president of consumer credit for Bethpage Federal.
By incorporating additional data sources through the models, the credit union can help to compose a more comprehensive credit history for underserved “credit invisibles” and offer them access to financial services, according to Witterschein.
“Normally, it would be difficult to make such a decision on how they might perform, but with all the additional data we can bring in using Scienaptic’s model,” the credit union can help make the decision less difficult, Witterschein said.
