SunTrust Banks’ fintech investment LightStream delivered $2 billion in originations in 2018, Allison Dukes, the bank’s chief financial officer, said during a fourth-quarter earnings call.
“LightStream originations as a percent of consumer originations excluding mortgage was about 25% in 2018,” Dukes said, noting that the fintech helps improve overall growth and returns within the bank’s consumer segment.
LightStream — SunTrust’s San Diego-based online lending division — is helping the traditional bank understand a customer base that is interested in non-traditional forms of communicating with lenders, Chuck Jones, head of national indirect lending at SunTrust Banks, said during a panel discussion at the American Financial Services Association’s Vehicle Finance Conference last month.
“The biggest benefit we will see from the [fintech] is the customer-to-client onboarding,” Jones said. “It really enhances the customer experience and helps us learn how they want to be communicated with, and it has been very positive.”
Consumers apply on LightStream’s website for unsecured loans that could be used can be used for multiple purposes, including auto purchase or refinance, debt consolidation, home improvement, and medical or dental costs. Consumers can use the interest rate range on the site to calculate monthly payments. On approval, consumers receive the loans within the business day.
LightStream provides a glimpse at a lending process different from SunTrust’s. “Having a mature business — SunTrust is [128] years old and having our fintech that’s about five-and-a-half years old — we get to really see the differences between the two and see that pace of change,” Jones said.
SunTrust had about $11 billion in auto assets in 2018, Jones said during the panel discussion. For the bank overall, early stage delinquencies decreased 7 basis points to 0.73% for the full year 2018, while total net charge-offs declined 3 basis points to 0.26% of the portfolio in the fourth quarter of 2018.
