Ocrolus Blog
From industry insight to people news, get the latest updates on topics including intelligent document processing, fraud detection, and small business lending, banking, and mortgage automation here.
Turning “eventually” into “right now”: How credit unions can win with AI
Every day a credit union delays digital transformation is another day members slip away. While leadership plans for “eventually,” competitors are securing loyalty right now with faster loans, smoother experiences and stronger security. The numbers paint a stark picture. Cyber incidents at credit unions climbed 25 percent year over year, according to the National Credit Union Administration. Traditional loan approvals still average 24–72 hours, with funding dragging for weeks. Meanwhile, Gen Z members abandon applications at the first hint of mobile friction, PYMNTS research shows. Members do not feel roadmaps. They feel delays—and look elsewhere. The real cost of waiting…
Putting borrower health first: Reimagining the SMB underwriting dashboard
Small business funders move fast, but traditional underwriting dashboards often slow them down. Data hides behind multiple tabs, context gets lost and analysts spend valuable minutes hunting for the numbers that matter most. Ocrolus, the AI-powered data and analytics platform, just changed that equation. Our latest SMB dashboard release gives funders an at-a-glance view of borrower health, sharper industry insight and deeper account analytics, without exporting a single spreadsheet. Why smarter dashboards matter in SMB underwriting Access to capital keeps small businesses afloat. Yet many funders still toggle between reports or wait for exports to assemble a full credit picture…
How Ocrolus builds tailored solutions through collaborative partnerships
In the fast-paced world of fintech, true partnerships aren’t transactional, they’re transformational. Ocrolus, an AI-powered data and analytics platform, takes a collaborative approach to every engagement, tailoring document automation and analytics workflows to the unique needs of each lender. Rather than offering one-size-fits-all automation, Ocrolus works hand-in-hand with mortgage and small business lenders to refine underwriting operations, increase efficiency, and improve the borrower experience. Through strategic partnerships with Lendr, Neighborhood Loans and Kapitus, Ocrolus has helped teams accelerate processing times, cut costs and drive better decisions. Lendr’s automation journey: Reclaiming time with document automation Chicago-based small business lender Lendr faced…
How Inspect enhancements close the loop between insights and action
In today’s fiercely competitive market, mortgage underwriting teams must process more loans faster while maintaining rock-solid accuracy. The answer is automation. Forward-thinking lenders are replacing manual review with intelligent tools that surface document discrepancies and trigger next steps instantly. Ocrolus, the AI-powered data and analytics platform trusted by over 130 mortgage lenders, has expanded Inspect with a new condition creation interface and Encompass integration, marking its evolution into a conditioning solution. Early adopters expect to cut underwriter touches by up to 75 percent while doubling throughput with the same staff. What’s new in Inspect? Inspect originally helped teams spot contradictions…
The AI imperative: Cultivating a culture of adoption in mortgage underwriting
The mortgage industry is at a pivotal juncture. Although artificial intelligence has proved it can speed up underwriting and reduce costs, many lenders still rely heavily on manual workflows. According to McKinsey’s State of AI 2025 report, organizations across financial services struggle to scale AI beyond isolated use cases, largely due to cultural and operational barriers. Lenders feel the squeeze to increase throughput without adding staff, a challenge intensified by the Federal Reserve’s June 18, 2025 decision to hold rates steady at 4.25 to 4.50 percent. The obstacle is not the technology itself but the way people embrace it. When…
Refining fraud signals in consumer lending with real-time feedback and AI
Consumer lenders combating fraud face a perpetually moving target. As fraudsters sharpen their schemes, such as synthetic identities or doctored pay stubs, the detection signals that lenders rely on must evolve just as quickly. If those signals are left to age, they eventually become noise and can overwhelm fraud teams with false positives, stalling legitimate borrowers from getting the funding they need. The solution is ongoing, data-driven refinement. By feeding real-world outcomes and frontline feedback back into the system, lenders can suppress stale alerts, highlight meaningful red flags and protect both their customers and margins. Reducing noisy signals to improve…
3 ways AI is transforming mortgage lending workflows
Mortgage lenders face unrelenting pressure to lower origination costs while giving borrowers a near‑instant, digital experience. Yet many teams still rely on manual document review and spreadsheet‑driven income calculations that slow decisions and frustrate applicants. Today, forward‑thinking lenders are deploying Ocrolus, the AI‑powered data and analytics platform, to replace repetitive stare‑and‑compare tasks with automation that delivers speed and certainty. Below, three lenders show how AI is already reshaping mortgage operations. American Federal trims touches and speeds decisions American Federal Mortgage built a national footprint over three decades, but its manual document indexing became a performance bottleneck. Each file required underwriters…
SMB trends: Increases in AI use and non-traditional funding amid economic uncertainty
Ocrolus and OnDeck recently unveiled the latest installment of the Small Business Cash Flow Trend Report, delivering valuable insights on U.S. small business trends and sentiment from Q1 2025. The report is based on responses from 437 small businesses with working capital loans from OnDeck and draws from cash flow data across more than 2 million small business financing applications processed by Ocrolus. While optimism for future growth remains strong overall, tariff uncertainty and shifting credit access are beginning to shape small business behavior. Future growth expectations AI use in small businesses in 2025 One of the most notable takeaways…
Closing the lending data gap with cash flow analytics
According to a 2022 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) report, nearly 50 million U.S. adults are credit invisible or unscorable. That’s roughly one in five Americans. For lenders, this creates a persistent challenge: how do you assess a borrower’s creditworthiness when traditional credit bureau data comes up short? This challenge becomes more complex during periods of economic volatility. Events like the COVID-19 pandemic, shifts in the job market or rising inflation can quickly render historical credit data obsolete. With changing income patterns and rising participation in gig work, relying solely on backward-looking credit scores is no longer enough. In a…
Executive Insights: Why vertical AI will define the next era of fintech
AI is now table stakes in lending. Boardrooms expect lower unit costs, regulators demand auditability and borrowers want instant decisions. But in a high-stakes, highly regulated environment, not all AI is created equal. General-purpose or horizontal AI models, often referred to as foundational models, are powerful but not designed specifically for lending. These tools frequently lack the financial context, compliance guardrails and workflow integration that institutions require. The real value comes from the application layer—domain-specific, vertical AI built on top of these models to solve targeted problems like document classification, income verification and fraud detection. The lenders best positioned to…
How AI is helping credit unions better serve members with faster, more accurate underwriting
Credit unions have long differentiated themselves through personal service and community focus. Yet that member-first promise is strained when lenders evaluate applicants who do not fit inside traditional credit boxes. Gig workers, ride-share drivers, small business owners and other non-traditional income earners who rely on variable income usually submit bank statements rather than W-2s. Reviewing those statements line by line takes time, introduces subjectivity and forces members to wait for answers. Manual workflows create two problems. First, processors and underwriters spend hours parsing deposits, filtering transfers and separating business from personal activity. Second, inconsistent calculations increase default risk because the…
How mortgage lenders can implement AI-powered decisioning into underwriting workflows
AI in financial services has evolved from a novel, promising technology to effectively become a prerequisite for mortgage lenders that want to stay competitive in a modern underwriting techscape. The mortgage lenders we at Ocrolus are meeting with on a weekly basis are increasingly focused on how best to use AI, how to implement mortgage document automation technology and how to prepare teams for the inevitable change in streamlined, automated mortgage operations. Achieving a smooth transition to AI‑powered decisioning requires more than simply purchasing software and training employees. Lenders must first analyze every step of their underwriting process for opportunities…
Proactively manage loan risk with post-funding cash flow analytics
After a loan is disbursed, lenders often shift their focus toward servicing and collections. But without visibility into evolving borrower health through ongoing loan health monitoring, they can find themselves blindsided by defaults that seemed to come out of nowhere. Static data leaves lenders reactive, scrambling for solutions after risk materializes. Monitoring loan health post-funding closes this gap. It provides lenders with valuable, real-time insights that help identify default risk early, protect portfolio performance and drive more thoughtful borrower engagement. By continuously tracking signals like income stability, cash-flow consistency and payment behavior, lenders can engage in proactive loan portfolio management,…
Navigating uncertainty with confidence: How AI enables scalable lending operations
Rethinking readiness The financial industry is caught in a perpetual balancing act. One month, macroeconomic signals point toward growth and rising demand for credit. The next, a regulatory shift or unexpected economic headwind prompts lenders to tighten their belts. In this type of environment, the real question isn’t if change will occur, but how quickly you can pivot when it does. For many lenders, this boils down to operational readiness. The days of static, long-term capacity planning are over. Now, institutions are seeking infrastructure that scales in sync with real-world conditions—an approach that lets them capture opportunities in good times…
Transform mortgage workflows with AI: Eliminate costs and boost agility
Mortgage lenders today face a critical challenge: replacing outdated, manual workflows with smarter, scalable solutions. With AI-powered mortgage automation from Ocrolus, lenders can reduce origination costs, eliminate inefficiencies, and stay competitive in any market cycle. Transforming cost centers into efficiency drivers with AI Mortgage origination costs continue to climb, putting pressure on lenders to reduce expenses while maintaining service quality. According to a 2024 Freddie Mac report, mortgage origination costs have increased 35%—or roughly $3,000—over the last three years. Rather than depending on costly and disruptive staffing adjustments, forward-looking lenders leverage AI and automation to drive continuous efficiency and agile…
Expand your SMB borrower pool with cash flow-first underwriting
Traditional underwriting processes built on credit bureau data provide a baseline for assessing risk, but they often neglect the nuanced realities of running a small business. As competition intensifies in the SMB lending market, funders are turning to new technologies and underwriting automation to grow their portfolios and serve more qualified borrowers without accumulating unnecessary risk. Cash flow analytics has emerged as a foundational tool in this evolution. By analyzing income trends, expenses, transaction categories and financial ratios early in the underwriting funnel, SMB funders can move beyond a binary credit score and begin to qualify borrowers on the true…
Modernizing non-QM underwriting with our enhanced bank statement income calculator
Borrower profiles are growing more complex. To keep up, mortgage lenders need an easier, more efficient way to calculate income, gain deeper financial insights and, ultimately, make smarter lending decisions. Ocrolus recently introduced several key updates to our Bank Statement Income Calculator (BSIC), a powerful tool that provides in-depth financial analysis derived from a borrower’s bank statements. The updates are designed to enhance data transparency, improve usability and optimize reporting processes for lenders underwriting non-QM loans. With these enhancements, lenders can analyze borrower income, streamline decision-making and gain valuable insights without the need for tedious, manual calculations. Simplifying complex mortgage…
Forging connections and lending innovations: Ocrolus March event recap
Team Ocrolus had a full month of events in March, with Fintech Meetup, ICE Experience and the Funders Forum + Brokers Expo. Each conference offered a unique opportunity – whether to reconnect with longtime partners, forge new relationships or pick up some key industry insights. Across all three events, a consistent theme emerged: lenders are focused on streamlining underwriting processes to stay competitive. Forward-thinking lenders recognize that automating manual, error-prone underwriting tasks is no longer a nice-to-have luxury, but rather is a necessity for organizations to keep their operating with a competitive edge in an evolving lending ecosystem. Bringing mortgage…
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