Wells Fargo is launching a digital-only product that runs on microservices to provide small, same-day loans to clients. 

The $1.8 trillion bank’s Flex Loan product has been in development since January and was integrated across multiple systems in real time using an API, Abeer Bhatia, CEO of retail financial services and personal lending at San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, told Bank Automation News. 

“We looked on the market and started seeing that there was a fundamental shift towards smaller [amounts] and installment loans,” Bhatia said. “People started to gravitate toward needing quick cash for short-term, cash flow needs. That was the ‘demand’ we saw from our customers.”

Once a bank customer completes the necessary forms, accepts the loan and selects an applicable repayment plan, funds are deposited into the user’s account within seconds using microservices. Each user that is eligible can receive the funds by completing the necessary steps, according to a company release. 

Automation was “fundamentally core” to the launch of the Flex Loan capability, and the product was built to be “fully digitally native” and enable the bank to build future products using the same technology, Bhatia added. 

The new loan product offers eligible Wells Fargo customers amounts ranging from $250 to $500 for a flat fee of $12 to $20 based on the amount borrowed, with the bank promoting the offer to eligible customers within the mobile app, Bhatia said. 

Flex Loan was designed to be able to award funds automatically once an application is completed and approved, offering clients a transparent process, he told BAN. 

“It’s not like our traditional application process where some people get approved and some don’t get approved,” Bhatia said. “We are also getting some very early feedback from our customers that they really like the automatic, quick nature of this thing, as opposed to kind of the traditional way of getting loans out there.” 

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