Live Oak Bank’s loan process for its business customers got a lot faster today.

The bank, headquartered in Wilmington, N.C., specializes in loans to small and medium businesses. It announced today that it had partnered with cloud-based banking systems provider nCino to provide a more streamlined and transparent process for its customers.

The two companies have a great deal of shared history. Live Oak spun off nCino in 2012 and divested itself of partial ownership in the software provider in February of this year.

Live Oak Bank filed to go public in June under the ticker LOB.

The lending landscape has grown highly competitive with the entry of nonbank players offering a faster and easier experience.  Why do people choose alternative lenders over banks, when the rates offered are nearly always more expensive? It’s all about speed, said nCIno CEO Pierre Naude. “People with a short-term loan horizon are willing to pay a premium for speed and ease of use,” he told Bank Innovation.

NCino, because of its history with Live Oak, often tests new products with the bank. The familiarity with each others’ systems makes the partnership a natural fit.

The new customer portal nCino and Live Oak introduced today offers customers greater transparency into the loan process, something consumers have grown used to from experience with Amazon, Netflix and the like. Importantly, it also gives bank employees greater insight into the loan process. And key to it all is speed — Naude said the new system cuts loan approval times down from 60 days to 30 to 35 days.

This may sound like a long time, but the loans being discussed are not small working capital loans, but rather on the order of commercial real estate loans in the millions of dollars. A $25,000 loan can be decisioned in 24 to 48 hours, but larger loans simply take longer to approve and fund. And there is compliance to factor in — NCino’s platform handles the ever-growing regulatory burden and makes life simpler for loan officers and auditors alike, according to Naude. Older, more manual processes can result in missed or overlooked documents, and that means delays.

Digital is not new for today’s customers, Naude said. It’s normal, and it makes the bank better at relationship-building. “You can pre-assess risk, flag servicing opportunities, all in real time,” Naude said. “And you can have a better dialogue with the customer.”

Live Oak Bank was founded in the digital era — 2007 — and completed its loan origination platform in 2009. According to the SBA, it originated $1.15 billion in loans to date in 2015.

Learn more about the latest in lending at Bank Innovation Israel, Nov. 10-11 in Tel Aviv. Request your invitation here.