Meridian OneCap reduces ‘expensive mistakes’ with AI

Meridian OneCap Credit is benefiting from AI deployment in areas that require significant policy and procedure considerations. AI integration has enabled the Canadian equipment lender and Meridian Credit Union subsidiary to avoid “a lot of expensive mistakes that have happened in the past” related to operational and credit processes, President Hugh Swandel told FinAi News . Equipment finance can be complicated due to the high degree of variance in asset types and lending scenarios, Swandel said. This can lead to forgetting procedures, particularly among new employees, or misuse of a certain policy. [caption id="attachment_57384467" align="alignright" width="240"] Meridan OneCap President Hugh Swandel[/caption] Thus, he said, AI is effective because once a policy and procedure is centralized in one place, “you can very quickly get the right answer with a link to where that source material exists.” “The ability to read unstructured data in documents … and to migrate that information to different places, that’s a huge saving. We've eliminated a lot of hours of labor from that alone.” Meridian OneCap is also using AI to perform tasks that are often too menial for staff, Swandel said. AI, for instance, can analyze customer queries sent via email and quickly direct them to the right person, he said. “We used to have to go through those emails to decide who needed to answer the customer,” he said. “Nobody really likes doing that kind of routing work.” At the end of 2025, gen AI was saving enterprise workers an average of 40 to 60 minutes per day, according to Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research . Gains by attrition Meridian OneCap eliminated nearly 10% of its payroll in 2025, “writing roughly the same amount of business at a lower cost,” Swandel said, adding that most of this was achieved through attrition . “The jobs where you have high turnover are often these jobs where they're low-paying,” he said. “But they have to do repetitive tasks like that routing work, and as you get rid of that work … you can afford to spend more on a higher caliber of talent that's doing more gratifying work.” Meridian OneCap plans to promote or retrain remaining employees as attrition occurs , Swandel said, while realizing that the “power of AI to change the speed at which you can deliver service to the client is massive.” “If you're not at the cutting edge of that, you could have an operating model that is no longer competitive,” he said. Further, the lender wants employees to begin managing a group of AI agents, enabling “more substantive, more rewarding” tasks while reducing fear of job displacement, Swandel said. “It’s conveying that transition to, ‘You're still accountable for this work, but you're getting somebody else to do it,’” he said. Register here for the FinAi Lending Summit, set for Oct. 7-8 in Las Vegas.

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