The technological upgrades Happy State Bank made prior to the COVID-19 crisis has helped the lender service and onboard customers digitally and deploy its own SBA Paycheck Protection Program platform in a matter of days, CEO J. Pat Hickman told Bank Innovation.

As of Friday afternoon, the Amarillo, Texas-based bank had received more than 1,250 applications totaling $185 million through an online portal that took about three days to stand up, Hickman said. The bank received SBA authorization for 1,000 applications totaling $159 million and has funded $50 million in PPP loans.

“I’ve been in this business 45 years and I’ve never seen this kind of a turn in such a short period of time,” Hickman said, noting employees have been working around the clock to get deals through the SBA pipeline.

Happy Bank integrated with Lightico, a fintech that processes e-signatures and other customer-identification verifiers online, at yearend 2019. The partnership, which was initially used to create a secure communication portal between Happy Bank and its customers, has accelerated the bank’s shift to digital channels as social distancing has kept employees and customers away from branches.

Also read: Banks retool customer service in the scramble for PPP loans

Prior to the partnership, communication with customers would be distributed using snail mail, postal service and manual work, according to Mark Murray, Happy Bank’s vice president of business systems. Now, the bank can deploy messaging and information through a link and have customers sign all documents digitally or on a mobile device.

Since the pandemic hit the U.S., Happy Bank customers’ use of the online channels has quadrupled to 1,000 engagements in March up from about 250 in February, Murray said. Since limiting the number of employees and customer interactions at its branches, Happy Bank also integrated Lightico technology into its drive-through kiosks to allow for increased account-specific functionality.

Looking forward, Happy Bank is embracing the adoption of digital tools and is optimistic about the lasting impacts social distancing will have on traditional bank services and customer acquisition.

“Necessity is the mother of invention, and a lot of barriers that community banks have had partnering with fintechs before are coming down and a lot of those walls are coming down, even internally,” Murray said. “I do think you’re going to see a pivot in our overall strategy out of this. I think we’re going to be a little more risk-tolerant than we were in the past because customers are going to demand it.”

Happy Bank has $3.8 billion in assets and is the 21st-largest bank in Texas, according to the company’s website. Founded in 1908 in Happy, Texas, the bank operates through 43 branch locations across Texas.