Two Oklahoma banks are growing their loan portfolios but reducing their need to hire additional personnel as they integrate automated systems into their existing platforms to speed workflow processes.

The $800 million Grand Savings Bank, for one, increased its outreach to 13 branches in Oklahoma and Arkansas from just two and grew its managed assets to $800 million from $200 million, after integrating automation platform Teslar Software more than five years ago, Grand Savings Bank Chief Financial Officer Pam Lawson told Bank Automation News.

Although the bank has grown, its need to hire more employees was limited due to the capabilities of the software, Lawson said, noting the bank has hired some employees but not as many as it would have needed without Teslar.

The bank credits its ability to serve more clients with its existing team of nearly 200 to its partnership with Teslar, which allows banks to access and manage borrower and portfolio data while expediting the lending process, according to Lawson.

“When we signed up with Teslar we decided to go all in,” she said, noting “one of the biggest things we’ve been able to work on is creating workflows.”

Springdale, Ark.-based Teslar launched in 2008 and automates lending, including exceptions and loan reviews, and overall portfolio management, according to the company website. The Software as a Service (SaaS) company launched on eight banking platforms in 2022 including FNB Community Bank, First Security Bank of Mississippi and Opportunity Bank of Montana.

Automated workflow

During the past year, the Grove, Okla.-based Grand Savings Bank used Teslar’s technology to digitize the formerly manual deposit account maintenance process into an automated workflow, Cole Cable, community banker trainee in information technology (IT) at the community bank, told BAN. In the past, if a client needed to update their account, the teller would have to collect and scan the paperwork, email it to themselves and then add it to the electronic filing system. “That’s just a lot of steps to what should be a simple process,” he said.

The automated system now allows the bank teller to submit an account maintenance form, which is then sent to the operations team to complete the task, all while keeping a digital record of where the tasks are in the completion process.

“We don’t have to have a separate employee that has to go scan documents and verify them anymore,” Lawson said.

Portfolio growth

The nearly $1 billion Liberty National Bank also launched Teslar to its platform in 2020, and has since grown its loan portfolio by 30%, Michael Bucher, chief credit officer at the bank, told BAN. The Apache, Oklahoma-based bank also reallocated one of its full-time equivalent employees out of its credit administration department and into an appraisal coordinator role due to the enhanced technology.

“With Teslar, we’ve been able to grow our loans tremendously without really adding additional staff,” Bucher said. “It is tough to find good quality candidates and retain them. So, we do our best once we find the right people to try to keep them on board and try and do everything possible by leveraging technology to make sure they’re not overburdened.”

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