TechSolutions4CUs
This is the official Finopotamus podcast. It focuses on credit unions and how they have leveraged technology to solve problems, enhance the member experience and drive growth. TechSolutions4CUs features working credit union technologists, as well as industry experts from around the globe.
TechSolutions4CUs
Commercial Lending 101, with Trevor Haley of IMCU and Andy Ivankovich of Baker Hill
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In this episode of TechSolutions4CUs, the official Finopotamus podcast, host and publisher John San Filippo dives into the massive, yet often overlooked, opportunities within commercial lending for credit unions. Joining the conversation are two industry experts: Andy Ivankovich, CEO of Baker Hill, a commercial and small business lending technology provider with over 40 years of experience; and Trevor Haley, Vice President of Commercial Underwriting at Indiana Members Credit Union (IMCU), a $3.5 billion institution managing an approximate $750 million commercial portfolio.
Together, the panel explores how credit unions can successfully compete against major banking institutions, transition away from manual processes, and leverage next-generation technology to safeguard their portfolios.
Key Discussion Highlights
- The Credit Union Opportunity: While credit unions traditionally focus on consumer lending, the commercial space offers a prime avenue for driving yield and gathering deposits. Larger credit unions have excelled here for decades, and many are now efficiently scaling their operations—even acquiring community banks to absorb established commercial lending teams.
- Fierce Competition & Relationship Banking: Competing against massive national banks requires a strategic approach. While the heavy hitters dominate commercial and industrial (C&I) lending, credit unions can find immense success in commercial real estate (CRE). Credit unions hold a distinct advantage through true relationship banking—building deep, trust-based partnerships over a cup of coffee—that larger institutions struggle to replicate.
- The Danger of Excel and the Shift to Tech: For institutions managing just a few CRE deals, spreadsheets might suffice. However, as a portfolio scales past a couple hundred million dollars, technology becomes critical. The experts discuss why relying on manual spreadsheets is unsustainable and risky, as a single multi-million-dollar bad loan impacts an institution far differently than a standard auto loan default.
- Core Integration & Eliminating Human Error: A seamless two-way flow of data between a loan origination system (LOS) and the credit union's core platform is vital. The guests explain how mapping hundreds of data fields reduces hours of redundant manual data entry, cuts down on human error during loan booking, and gives underwriting committees a comprehensive view of a member's entire relationship.
- AI as an Enablement Tool: Looking toward the future, artificial intelligence is highlighted not as a replacement for relationship bankers, but as a powerful tool to eliminate administrative friction. From automating the spreading of tax documents in milliseconds to providing early warning indicators for portfolio monitoring, AI allows lean teams to cover more ground and proactively manage risk.
This episode of Tech Solutions for CUs is brought to you by Baker Hill, helping financial institutions lend better, lend faster, and lend more through intelligent lending technology built for modern banking. Learn how Baker Hill is helping credit unions simplify complexity, strengthen relationships, and create better borrower experiences at Bakerhill.com.
SPEAKER_00And now here's the host of Tech Solutions for CUs, Phinnoponus Publisher John Sanfilippo.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to this episode of Tech Solutions for CUs, the official Phinnaponymus podcast. I am Phenoponymus publisher John Sanfilippo, and I'm your host today. And we are here today to talk about commercial lending in the credit union space. And we're fortunate to have with us two um experts in their own right on that topic. Um and gentlemen, thanks for being here. And let's do this. Let's just have you each introduce yourselves, tell us your your name, your job title, and a little bit about your organization. And Trevor, we can start with you.
SPEAKER_03All right. Yeah, John, thanks for having me. I am Trevor Haley. I'm the vice president of commercial underwriting at Indiana Members Credit Union here in Indianapolis, Indiana. Uh we're about a three and a half billion dollar institution with 32 branches around central to southern Indiana. Um, and we service our membership base there with an approximate $750 million commercial portfolio of unfunded commitments. And we're I'm happy to be here alongside Andy to discuss all things commercial lending and technology with you all.
SPEAKER_02Great. Andy?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'm Andy Ivankevich, and I'm the CEO for Baker Hill, which is a provider of technology specifically around commercial lending and small business lending. Um we typically use those those acronyms of LOS, which is loan origination software. Um, and we've been doing it for over 40 years. We're on our uh fourth iteration of a platform um that both Indiana members with Trevor uses, um, but many credit unions across the nation as well as uh community banks.
SPEAKER_02Okay, great. And I would like to start, and maybe this is more of a question for you, Andy, because I'm sure you keep your eye on what's going on in the industry. And and talk to me a little bit about the opportunity for credit unions. Because I think cred there's there is a big opportunity. I think um it's an overlooked opportunity at a lot of credit unions. I think it maybe at some credit unions it's even kind of scary to talk about commercial.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I, you know, gosh, I've been around this for quite a while in lending. And, you know, when you look at uh credit unions, at least from from my perspective, being a credit union member, um, one of the biggest things is, you know, that uh credit unions really their charter was around consumer lending, right? Servicing that member in particular. Um but the opportunities that just um abound is that many members either start businesses or um, you know, let's just say that it's easier for a credit union to operate by doing a large loan for a commercial real estate um project and use its deposits accordingly. And so I think that what we've kind of seen through the credit union movement is that, yeah, for many years it's it's all been consumer-consumer. And I would say about 20, 25 years ago, um, some of the bigger credit unions um started to dabble in commercial lending and they got really good at it. Um, and now we're seeing credit unions across the nation that either have a portfolio, building a portfolio. I mean, we even have lots of credit unions um that you'll see in PR-wise that are buying community banks so that they can do it more efficiently and uh just really getting into the market. And I think at the end of the day, what we're looking for either your community bank or a credit union, it's about more yield and more deposits, right? That's that's the messaging that's coming across. And there's not a better area to do it than commercial lending and small business lending.
SPEAKER_02And and Trevor, what why don't you pick up there and tell me how you compete with some of the some of the heavy hitters in your space? Because I I am I imagine it's pretty competitive.
SPEAKER_03It is, and and and it really becomes a challenge too when you start dabbling in uh the CNI type lending that the big banks really do very, very well. So we are kind of resort uh we resort ourselves to doing a lot of commercial real estate loans, much like the community banks that are probably more aligned as our our peers in competition um to do we're we're we're more real estate heavy, I'll say that. Um but there is a bit of C and I flavor because some some large banks don't want any commercial real estate. So if we're dealing with an owner-occupied facility, um you do all have to understand the implications of a C and I operating line of credit that may be held at, you know, a Chase, Wells, Fargo, PNC, and some of the bells and whistles they have attached to that to make sure they don't end up in an event of default with some of the larger institutions. So, you know, competition-wise, it's it's fierce, but it's also there's also a lot of opportunity. Um as you went over those relationships, you do tend to get more opportunities to get the full relationship versus just a small piece of it.
SPEAKER_02And just just to clarify for anybody that's not familiar with the term, um, talk tell our audience what C and I stands for.
SPEAKER_03It's commercial and institutional. Um, a lot of people call it commercial and industrial. And um it really is true operating businesses. You know, manufacturing companies are are big in the CNI type world. Um and you know, a lot of a lot of the large banks, because of the capital requirements through, I believe Basel it is, uh, the short-term operating lines are are really um their focus because they're they're easy to bring on board, less capital from a um, you know, a credit and processing standpoint. Um, but it is kind of intensive on the maintenance side. And it does require large teams to to make sure they're monitoring those credits accordingly. But on the on the flip side, they're also easier to exit than commercial real estate.
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SPEAKER_02And you you mentioned you know, building the relationship. And anytime I talk to anybody about any aspect of the competitive marketplace for credit unions, relationships always come up. Credit unions are better at building relationships. Do you find that that that's important to your line of business?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, relationship management is just extremely important. Uh credit unions pride themselves on their relationship management capabilities. Um, you know, consumer lending that the credit unions have been involved with since the beginning of time do tend to have repeat borrowers and they do pride themselves on people helping people. It's just kind of the basis of the credit union movement. And, you know, to double down on it in the commercial space, um, you know, while you do have to have good relationship management skills, you also have to provide the value to the business owner. And and Andy was talking a couple of weeks ago with a study of Delta Airlines that said people are willing to pay more if you can show the value in the service you give them. So um we do try to take it a step further and and make it hard for people to leave uh with how well we treat them and the sound advice we do provide for them.
SPEAKER_02Anything you want to add to that, Andy?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it is kind of interesting because um, you know, we're we're talking about credit unions and we also do community banks. And, you know, we have a lot of community bank bankers, and they they view credit unions as a threat, right? Um, in this space because I I think what Trevor just hit it on was the key to commercial lending, small business lending is the relationship. It's true relationship banking 101. And what I mean by that is that you have the cup of the coffee with with that member who owns a business, and you're saying, hey, you're growing, how can I help you? And you're you're at that, you're you're at the seat of the table. And they start to expand more about, hey, I'm struggling with this. I want to um, I need to get another, if it's a brewery, right? I need to get another rig in here, so because I'm expanding so much on Saturdays and Sundays, and well, let me figure that out with you, right? And you know, when we talk about commercial lending and small business lending, to underwrite it's complex. You know, I'm not gonna shy around and say that, hey, we got a simple process for doing it because we're we're having to adhere to underwriting guidelines that are quite unique. It's not a you know $25,000 auto loan, right? You're gonna go in, you have to look at, okay, how many participants does somebody have, how many um uh in a particular business, right? And it could be silent partners and they got to sign off on things, and then you gotta look at cash flow, you gotta look at it for the past three years, you gotta see the trends yourself. And when you're dealing with that, uh small business owners don't want to just really give that information to just anybody. So if you've identified and developed that relationship over time, you can it is that cup of coffee that it is unique to a credit union that is uh difficult for for any bank or even the chases of the world or anybody else in there. And so uh credit unions are actually primed for for this type of banking and these types of products.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so let me ask you this, Trevor. What is the relationship between your group and the group at the credit union that's responsible for commercial deposit products? How does that all get coordinated?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, years ago, we were kind of the same department. Uh it was just commercial, we were we were business services and and uh the treasury function fell underneath that umbrella. And uh as we grew, we purchased a bank and we were able to add uh add to staff. It made sense to have the Treasury function kind of branch off and be its own department. Um so while they do have their own initiatives and and their growth uh plans, we look at it more as a partnership between uh us and them because one, everybody's chasing deposits, but you also have to have the lending um activity too to really make it more valuable and um you know, seeing the whole relationship. We've got people that borrow with us from a business standpoint. They we have all of their operating accounts, their deposits. And then naturally you do shift to the the personal side of banking and and being able to handle all of that. It really, it really brings together the whole um argument that that's been thrown around for years, as long as I've been in banking, that we want to grow organically. And and do we have the product penetration on um all of our members for everything? We want to be their primary lending and depository institution.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and and Andy, based on your observations over the years, as far as best practices go, I'm a credit union, I'm just getting started with commercial lending. Do I need to put my technology in place and then staff around that, or do I need to put uh experienced staff in place and build the technology around that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, John, it's probably a combination of both. So I would tell you this if um, you know, the the typical products that credit unions start off with are commercial real estate, because you can almost understand it from a mortgage um background, right? Then you can it's easy about looking at rent rolls, right, and doing cash flow about how how the debt is able to be paid back. And so that's where we see a lot of folks that that are doing that. And and let's, I mean, again, some of these deals, you know, it could be a three million or a $10 million hotel, right? And all of a sudden you got a portfolio of maybe $100 million. And so we usually see them starting um out um that way. Now, you don't need a lot of technology to do three and four commercial real estate deals, right? It it's it in many cases it's Excel and a good banker who understands the process and and can can walk through it with somebody. As soon as you get past a couple hundred million dollars in um a portfolio, you now need two underwriters, you need the hunter killer banker that's out there. Um you need fulfillment, right? Uh the doc integrations and four or five data sets that you're gonna pull from um either from bureaus or non-bureau related data. And and you quickly move into the need for technology. And um, but you know, as we kind of talk about some of these deals, they they start to get a little bit more complex. You you leave CRE, you're in a CNI. Um now you want to do small business, and now you want to cross the line, you want to do SBA lending. Um, again, you're now getting into complexity to where one or two back office folks will not be able to handle that. And so we'll usually see a journey where uh credit union will kind of start off small and then about a year or two, they're they're looking to optimize. Um, and that's when all of a sudden you need a technology provider to do it. I did mention too, John, what some folks do, some some credit unions, and we see this very common. You can search press releases all day long on this, is that the small $200, $300 million bank that's in a community gets acquired by that credit union for that very purpose of saying, hey, they have 10 or 20 lenders and an administration process around that. Um, I'm I'm gonna start there just to get the experience in um so we can start doing this at a little bit more scale.
SPEAKER_02Well, let me ask you this. And either one of you can jump in with an answer. And that is, I know there are CUSOs out there that you can that a credit union can kind of outsource their commercial lending to. And I'm not saying that's a bad idea. And in fact, I know there's some QSOs that do a really good job of that, and some credit unions that are very satisfied being part of that. But you still anytime you outsource anything to anybody, you're still giving up a little bit. And and just maybe comment on that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I would probably say a c a smaller credit union, I'd say less than a billion dollars. If if you can't find the right person to kind of lead the charge um in starting a commercial lending program, I think a CUSO is a great fit to have somebody really take that head on and gain the experience uh until you're large enough, you know, $100, $200 million in exposure, where maybe it makes sense to keep that in-house and take some of the the giveaway back. Um and it'll give you kind of a crash course too into the full commercial lending cycle. Um But yeah, outside of that, I mean, you know, getting the right people in place is key. And I think it's not just for commercial lending, I would say it's it's anything you do. If you don't have the right people, you're gonna have the best tools in the world, but it may not get you where you want to go.
SPEAKER_02I think there's two two different groups that are maybe early on in their commercial lending journey. There are the credit unions that aren't doing anything and are just thinking, gee, maybe we should do this. And then there are the ones that is you were talking about are kind of dabbling with you know Excel and and stuff like that. Maybe maybe maybe one at a time we can talk about those two groups of credit unions and what are logical next steps for them.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I would say if you're using Excel, I I would strongly urge you to transition out of that uh sooner rather than later, because you know, at the end of the day, with where technology is going in the banking environment, the Excel model of years past uh won't be sustainable in the future. So the longer you wait to make that shift to having you know a solid LOS and and portfolio management um product, the harder that project's gonna be in the future.
SPEAKER_04That's right. And I I think too, Trevor, you hit it on when you said the the word portfolio monitoring, because I think that what we always have to be careful of is that if I'm doing auto lending at a credit union today, I lose one or two deals, it's priced into your loss rates, right? And you you figured out that risk. Um, you lose a million-dollar corporate real estate deal, uh, it it it gets you. Um and it's also significant to where it now becomes more press worthy in your your community that you made a bad loan. And so a lot of the tools and technology that the origination system provides is also monitoring because what you're doing apart origination is you're setting up covenant agreements. You're saying that I will get your tax return every year. I'll I'll get um you know, I'll get notice that you paid your property taxes. And one of those things is that you can get early warnings and early indicators if a loan not necessarily is going to go bad, but you need to pay a visit to them and make sure that everything is okay. And and so the technology actually helps you to do that, and it you know, is quite different than looking at somebody who hasn't paid their auto loan in 60 days or 90 days. Um it it it you know, we've solved so much on the consumer side from a easy push-button technology to where we know as soon as they have auto insurance, you know, through either SWBC or um some of the other providers are out there. Um, but commercial lending is different and and Excel won't won't help you manage basically all the tax returns that you're supposed to look at and chase down to grab a hold of.
SPEAKER_03And the examiners do hold us accountable for all of that. And, you know, and depending on the lending institution, you know, lenders may not be incentivized on portfolio management, but it's also a key component to everything that we do. I mean, like Andy said, if we're losing, getting payoffs on million or bad deals, million, two, three, four, five, whatever that is, it makes it exponentially harder to grow uh if you're not maintaining what you've got. And if a lender's assigned 150, 200 credits, that's basically every single day of the year they're out kicking the tires with their their borrowing portfolio and not really sourcing new business. So the more you can have technology um, you know, built into what you do and those early warning indicators, as Andy mentioned, like you're using technology to cover more ground.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Andy, how long did you say Baker Hill has been around?
SPEAKER_04Oh gosh. Um we're almost 40 years. We we kind of say that we're 40 years young because we in our in our competitive space, we got to operate like a tech startup every day.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, my qu my question was gonna be I mean, we're we're in an era now where uh any any any tech any tech company that's more than 10 minutes old isn't isn't cool and sexy and and is is is kind of frowned upon a lot of times. And and how do you how do you uh how do you fight that perception? Because I mean, obviously there's a lot to the experience uh that's uh housed within your company. And also you mentioned earlier that you've been through four different iterations of the software. So it's not like you're just sitting on the old thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, in our space, right? Um, so you know, just to understand a little bit about Baker Hill is that um we originate on average per month almost seven billion dollars in in lending, right? That our uh any of our um credit unions or comedian banks are operating with. And so when you look at commercial loans that are being done on an annual basis, I think there's a stat out there that uh you know this year's plan would be a trillion dollars, right? And so we're we're basically originating 10% of the the US loans that are being done. Um, that's scale and that's also a result of trust from our institutions. And what that means is that. You've got to stay up on the technology and you've got to be aggressive about it. So our, you know, as we we kind of talked about right back in the day, it was spreadsheets, it was floppy disks when we first started uh we started Baker Hill invented spreading software. Um, but all throughout that time period, you know, we had the the dot-com era that happened, right? That um the company had to shift and provide uh solutions and services. We had the cloud that came up in 2016, we had to convert a platform over to that. And now we have um AI, right, that we look at as an enablement. Um, and we got to make sure that we're being a steward and and and rightly deploying that uh within our solution. But when you come down to it, John, at the end of the day, you know, when you talk about technology providers and those that have been out there and who hasn't, I think that um our folks, and by the very nature, I've mentioned that commercial lending is complex, is that we know the use cases and we know the technology. Um many fintechs that get started are exploring the use cases. And you see a lot of fintechs have experience around payments, which is a very simple transaction. Or you see fintechs um having success in the consumer lending area. Again, very simple process. Um when it comes down to commercial lending, the reason why we're still around and still heavily used um is because we understand what has to be done when it comes to commercial lending. And there's only a few folks that are out there that that know how to do it. And and we've been proud to say that we've been Indiana born and bred, and we're we're proud to call ourselves Hoosiers, right? And uh at the end of the day, that's that's what we do, and that's all we've ever done.
SPEAKER_02Uh when we were talking uh earlier uh earlier in the week, I mentioned that when I think of an LOS, I think of data flowing out of the LOS and into the core platform. And you Andy mentioned that that Baker Hill goes to um a lot of effort to make sure there's a lot of data flowing from the core to your LOS. Tell me a little bit about that, and then Trevor, you maybe you can jump in and talk about in your day-to-day life why that's so important.
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah, I can uh you know, I can unpack it this way, John, about core integration and why it's so important, right? Whether or not it's scimitar or it's Pfizer of DNA or anything else that's out there, is that when we think about a core, we always think about it as deposit servicing. I mean, that's that's the main focus of those platforms and then doing your digital banking if you're using a third party or using one of the core core providers. But our bankers that are using our process, um, they live in the origination side 100%. They're not on the servicing side where that core environment is. And so we have to make sure that we're mirroring as much data as possible from the core inside the LOS so that that lender doesn't have to rekey in information every single second. They can also look at all the loans and all the assets this individual may have in a in a in a second, right? So to get them an offer or be able to say, I can take care of your needs. And so as as you stated, John, it's very important where data is coming out of the core and into the LOS. And in our case, you know, we have over 500 fields that are mapped. And a lot of folks will say, gosh, that's a lot. And it is because at the end of the day, if I if Trevor's gonna go and um he has a group of doctors that decide they want to buy all their office condominiums together um through an LLC, I gotta pull and look at every one of those individuals. Um and I gotta look at their entities, and a lot of that is coming directly from the core. And you imagine if you didn't have that integration, how many wasted hours of rekeying that information would do to somebody. And so the two-way communication, meaning data coming from the core, and then ultimately when you do book alone, you want that to seamlessly flow back into the core for servicing as long as well as like any covenants or any agreements that were made a part of the the deal when he closed it. Um, so it's very important both ways to get that in and out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and I'll speak on the on the end user side. I mean, you know, in the example Andy said with five doctors wanting to buy something, you know, as you're you're putting together a loan presentation package for a committee or whoever the approving authority is at your institution, it's so much easier in in one place to really grab a larger picture of, hey, there's five doctors, three of them are personal members. These are the borrowing products they have with us, these are the deposit products they have with us that a committee can see. You know, it's not just about this one deal. We've got a larger relationship here that's pretty good for us, and we'd like to retain the business, win the business, and and continue to deepen that relationship. But um, then again, on the flip side, if it was a a brand new group to us, you know, we're keying in that stuff on the front end, you know, are we gonna have a processor as we book the loan if we do win the business keying in, you know, an LLC, you might have an operating company, and then you got five individuals going through those steps five different times when it's already been done versus just pushing information to the core and having it magically create. And it cuts down on the human error too. Um, the more information you're keying in, whether or not it's been keyed in one, five, ten times if a human is doing it, it just opens up uh the opportunity for human error. So it does eliminate and reduce a lot of that. And it's easier um on the, you know, I guess post-closing or pre-closing audit side, just to check some boxes and say, hey, all this looks good. We're ready.
SPEAKER_02Okay, our our time is winding down, but I didn't want to leave without devoting a couple more minutes to artificial intelligence because that's something everybody wants to talk about. And and Trevor, maybe we could start with you and just just tell the audience how AI is impacting what you do on a day-to-day basis.
SPEAKER_03Uh, you know, it's everywhere. Uh, you know, uh, I'm sure a lot of credit unions have a lot of vendors and they have their own AI product that uh they're happy to promote and and show that this is the greatest thing we've got today. And we have our own AI solutions here internally that um is is gaining speed every day. Um what that means in the future, I don't know. Um, but I do know the ability to figure that out is gonna come a lot faster than um you know the internet or the cloud-based solutions did.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, John, and I would say about AI, right? Um we're laughing where my initials are AI, Andy Ivankovich. So I gotta live with this stuff nonstop, not only in a technical world, but a personal level. But I I think Trevor kind of hit it on the head. I I think for us as lenders, because I have to look at perspective of lending, and I have to look at it as a perspective of uh just from uh the the credit union or the bank itself that is gonna use it. And where we've kind of been down um at the end of the day is to say that it is enablement at the end of the day. Um, because for us in banking, we have to reveal all the decisions that are being made and making sure it adheres to our policy and our credit guidance and our underwriting criteria. And what is kind of interesting is we got to be careful in this world where there is a lot of noise out there. Um, things that would say like old school, like I can put it in a black box and I can decision a $10 million commercial real estate loan and generate a credit memo and you guys are good, right? And and I think there's a world for that eventually. But right now, I think that the tools um for us as lenders are really around this idea about how do I save time in the processes and the workflow I currently have. And so where you're seeing that take place is documents. You know, we're we're gonna live with documents forever in lending. Um, but yet maybe instead of like having to use a third-party tool to do spreading of tax documents, I can now do that in a millisecond. And I can do that with a high confidence rating. And so where we're seeing credit unions and banks, that's the embracing of like, I want to speed up a task that normally a credit analyst would have to do something for four hours, and now they do it in two or three minutes. And then the monitoring side is the other opportunity is that I've got all these docs coming in, I'm I'm looking at cash flow, how AI is beginning to help that. And I and I I think that's our state for the next year or two for credit unions and banks is adopting that because those are safe areas. Now, when we get down to the level of like, okay, are we gonna be ready for the the the true automated teller? And we were just at a uh uh at a bank that uh the guy had been working, he started as a teller, uh, and he was talking about that when he saw an ATM machine going up, and he's been doing this for 30 years, and they came back to him and said, our job's gonna be taken away. And I think that what the other noise thing that I see out there, and what we got to be careful of is that the relationship banker is always gonna be needed. And AI is not gonna take that one aspect that has to be done away, or at least in my lifetime. And so um what we have to do is basically say, okay, how do I deploy it? How do I operate it? And for Baker Hill, we carry that charge on our chest is that we're gonna figure it out with our partners like Trevor and Indiana members, and deploying the software where we think it is correct to deploy it, and be that checkbox, if you will, inside the lending organization that says, hey, we got AI figured out, but we also know where it's at and what is noise and what is not.
SPEAKER_03I was just gonna add to that real quick too, John. I think, you know, with the technology improvements today, um, you talk in terms of bench strength and and human resources that that are needed to maintain a commercial portfolio. I don't I don't think we're really seeing an influx of the next generation of commercial bankers hitting the marketplace to the degree that that the industry probably did 20 years ago. So a lot of the stuff that that we are leveraging technology with probably replaces some of those more entry-level jobs. And um, you know, on on the servicing side of our portfolio, too, if you think we're collecting financial statements on an annual basis, a lot of people file extensions. So depending on the time of year uh and the amount of annual reviews that you have to do, you're kind of at least I know we feel this way at in March and October, we're we we're kind of always playing catch up. And the introduction of AI to help either uh designate something, maybe an early warning um loan that we may have to spend a little bit more time on to get out ahead of earlier. Uh, we can do that versus just, hey, we've got 300 reviews that we're behind on, and we've really got to work really hard to catch back up. I think it I think it'll allow us the ability to stay on top of our portfolio in a faster amount of time and feel good about where everything is, or identify those problems wherever they're showing.
SPEAKER_02Great. All right, one last thing, and then I'll let you guys go. I would like each one of you to give me a prediction for the future. It can be any time looking forward in any any topic, just a prediction. Don't all speak at once.
SPEAKER_04Uh I'm not a believer of nothing new under the sun, John. Um, they're just different ways of approaching certain problems and making our life a little easier. But uh I I'll I'll make this prediction. We'll still go see movies at the movie theater in the future. There are movies like I don't know, Star Wars and a few other things out there. I don't I don't think we'll we'll sit in the living room like most people think.
SPEAKER_03Oh, my prediction uh for the future, let's see. Well, it is the Indianapolis 500 this weekend. Um, and I will predict that an Andretti won't win the race because there is no Andretti in the race this year for the first time in like 50 years here. So um, but realistically, I think the landscape that we live in today, I think in the next 36 months, we we're gonna look back and and say, wow, a lot has changed.
SPEAKER_02All right. Well, again, I appreciate you spending your time with me today. And uh look forward to talking to you again.
SPEAKER_03Yes, John. Thank you. You too, John.