Digital banking service provider nCino rolled out an agentic AI tool in April to significantly trim review times for commercial and small business lenders. 

The Analyst Digital Partner tool, built internally by nCino, can cut credit review time by up to 70%, Chris Gufford, chief product officer at nCino, told FinAi News.

The solution “ is built on a proprietary, purpose-built architecture designed specifically for banking, not a generic AI solution adapted for financial services,” Gufford said. 

One nCino bank client was able to deploy the tool for commercial lending in just 36 minutes, he said, without naming the customer. The bank went from implementation to live use almost immediately because the infrastructure for it was already in place on nCino’s cloud-based platform. 

The tech 

The agentic AI tool automates routine credit monitoring and underwriting taskslike:  

• Covenant testing;  

• Aggregating borrower data; and  

• Financial analysis across commercial and small business lines.  

The Analyst Digital Partner also supports nCino’s mortgage lending solution through products like Doc VOI and AUS Smart Tasks. These address common friction points for mortgage underwriters, like document verification and entering raw data in required forms, he said.  

The new tool, Gufford said, can autonomously:  

• Trigger covenant tests,  

• Generate relationship reviews and  

• Send alerts when a borrower’s risk profile changes.  

However, human bankers retain final authority over all credit decisions, and the agent operates within guardrails each institution defines, he added. 

“The goal is to automate the manual and routine work so bankers can focus on their high-value work and amplify their expertise and judgment,” Gufford said. 

Gufford emphasized that the agent surfaces analysis to support human judgment; it does not make autonomous credit decisions. Audit trails and compliance standards are built into every workflow, he noted. 

Among nCino’s FI clients are: 

• $1.5 trillion TD Bank; 

• $203 billion Navy Federal Credit Union; 

• $2 trillion Barclays; and 

• $2.25 trillion Santander Bank. 

The company said multiple major FIs are working to deploy the solution in their operations, without disclosing names. 

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