AI-Powered Home Equity Lending With a Human Touch

Most credit unions are sitting on a home equity goldmine and treating it like a paper-based back office chore.

Meanwhile, members are comparing your HELOC process to the two-click experience they get from big tech and digital-first lenders. That gap is where you either win new primary relationships—or lose them for good.

This post in our AI for Credit Unions: Member-Centric Banking series looks at that gap through the lens of a recent CUInsight Network episode with Allen Jingst, Chief Revenue Officer at Coviance. Coviance focuses on simplifying home equity and HELOC lending for credit unions, using automation and AI to create faster, cleaner workflows without stripping out the human connection members actually care about.

Here’s the thing about AI in lending: tools alone don’t fix broken experiences. Leadership, clear workflows, and a member-first mindset do. AI just lets you execute on that vision at scale.

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Why Home Equity Lending Is the Perfect Starting Point for AI

Home equity and HELOCs are where AI can create huge value for credit unions with relatively contained risk.

Most credit unions already:

• Know their members deeply
• Have a strong real estate lending history
• Are trusted in their communities

But the process is often slow, manual, and fragmented.

The pain members feel today

If your HELOC experience looks like this, your members feel it:

• 10+ days from application to approval
• Multiple in-person visits for paperwork and signatures
• Manual income verification and document chasing
• Confusing status updates (or no updates at all)

Members don’t say, “Your workflow is inefficient.” They say, “This is taking forever,” or worse, they quietly apply somewhere else.

Why AI fits so well here

AI and automation can streamline home equity lending without turning it into a black box. Done right, you get:

• Faster approvals by automating data collection, income checks, valuations, and conditions
• Consistent decisions aligned with your lending policies and risk appetite
• Cleaner member communications driven by status-aware workflows
• Less staff burnout from repetitive, low-value tasks

Allen Jingst and the Coviance team focus exactly on this: automating the lending process while still enhancing the human touch, not replacing it.

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Automate the Workflow, Not the Relationship

AI for credit unions works best when it handles the plumbing so people can handle the conversation.

“Let’s challenge each other to lead.” – Allen Jingst, Coviance

That mindset matters. Too many institutions flip the equation and try to automate the conversation while staff wrestle with clunky back-office tools.

What should be automated in home equity lending

These are the areas where automation and AI usually deliver quick wins:

1. Data intake and pre-fill

   • Auto-populate applications with existing member data
   • Validate addresses, identities, and basic eligibility in seconds

2. Property and collateral analysis

   • Use AVMs and data models to estimate property values and LTV
   • Flag edge cases for manual review instead of treating every file the same

3. Document collection and verification

   • Secure portals for uploads
   • AI-driven document classification and data extraction (W-2 vs. paystub vs. bank statement)
   • Automated reminders for missing documents

4. Condition management and routing

   • Standard conditions generated from your policies
   • Auto-routing files to the right underwriter or team based on complexity

5. Status updates and notifications

   • Triggered emails, texts, or app alerts at each stage
   • Plain-language summaries of what’s done and what’s next

None of these touch the core relationship. They support it.

Where humans should stay front and center

AI should never be the one empathizing with a member who’s:

• Tapping equity to cover medical bills
• Helping a child with college expenses
• Consolidating debt and trying to break old habits

Those conversations belong to your team. AI just clears the noise so your people can:

• Spend time on goals, not forms
• Offer financial wellness guidance tied to loan options
• Proactively suggest alternatives when a HELOC isn’t the best fit

This is what member-centric AI actually looks like in practice.

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From “We’ve Always Done It This Way” to AI-Ready Workflows

Most credit unions don’t lack data or heart. They lack designed workflows that can support automation and AI.

Allen described Coviance’s role as supporting credit unions through the entire process of analyzing, innovating, and initiating new workflows. That’s the right order.

Step 1: Analyze your current lending process

Start with a brutally honest view of your home equity journey:

• How long from application to clear-to-close?
• How many staff touch a typical file?
• Where do files sit waiting? (days in status, not just steps on a chart)
• What do members complain about most?

A simple whiteboard or swimlane diagram is usually enough to uncover:

• Duplicate data entry
• Unclear decision authority
• “Email black holes” where files go quiet for days

Step 2: Innovate specific, member-centric changes

Resist the urge to say “we need AI” and instead say “we need a faster, clearer, fairer HELOC process.” Then ask how AI supports that.

Examples:

• Goal: Cut HELOC approval times from 10 days to 48 hours
  • Use: Automated income and property data, AI-based document reading, standardized conditions

• Goal: Reduce member frustration about status

  • Use: Workflow engine that triggers real-time notifications, simple status dashboards, and scripts for staff

• Goal: Free up loan officers for advisory conversations

  • Use: Automation to handle task routing, document tracking, and checklist management

Step 3: Initiate and iterate instead of “going live once”

The worst AI projects are the ones that wait for perfection.

A better pattern:

1. Roll out automation to a small HELOC segment (e.g., existing members with LTV below a certain threshold)
2. Track cycle time, pull-through, member satisfaction, and staff feedback
3. Adjust rules, workflows, and messaging monthly
4. Expand eligibility once the process is stable

Modern lending platforms, including Coviance, are built for this kind of iteration: workflow tweaks, rule changes, and new data sources without rewriting everything from scratch.

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Using AI While Honoring Credit Union Values

A big theme from Allen’s conversation: credit unions are long-standing institutions with deep insight and trust. AI should amplify that, not dilute it.

Here’s how to keep your values intact while modernizing lending.

Stay transparent in AI-assisted decisions

Members don’t want to hear, “The system declined you.” They want to know why in plain language.

For AI-supported loan decisioning:

• Keep policy logic interpretable and well-documented
• Train staff to explain key factors: income, DTI, LTV, credit history
• Offer concrete next steps (e.g., “If you reduce your card balances by $X, we can reconsider.”)

Transparency builds trust—even when the answer is no.

Use AI to support financial wellness, not just approvals

If you’re serious about member-centric banking, AI shouldn’t just be a decision engine. It should also:

• Surface personalized insights from member transaction history
  (e.g., recurring high-interest payments that could be consolidated with a HELOC)
• Nudge staff to offer financial counseling when certain patterns appear
• Identify members likely to benefit from home equity products before they go elsewhere

That’s where AI moves from “operational efficiency” to “member advocacy.”

Protect members with AI-driven fraud detection

Home equity and real estate loans are prime targets for fraud. AI can:

• Flag unusual patterns in applications (sudden IP changes, inconsistent income data, mismatched identity details)
• Score transactions and interactions for fraud risk in real time
• Alert staff to suspicious scenarios while good members move through quickly

You get both stronger security and a smoother experience for genuine members—exactly the balance credit unions care about.

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Leadership: The Missing Ingredient in Most AI Lending Projects

Technology isn’t what slows most credit unions down. Culture and leadership do.

Allen’s challenge—“Let’s challenge each other to lead”—lands here. AI in lending isn’t an IT project. It’s a leadership decision about what kind of experience you want to offer and how boldly you’ll pursue it.

What strong leadership looks like in this space

The credit unions that are winning with AI-powered lending usually:

• Set a clear vision
  “We will make home equity approvals as easy as mobile check deposit, without sacrificing our values.”

• Pick a flagship use case
  Home equity/HELOC is perfect: high member impact, manageable risk, strong strategic upside.

• Give teams permission to pilot
  Small experiments, quick feedback loops, and a bias toward shipping improvements.

• Invest in vendor partnerships, not one-off tools
  Platforms and partners (like Coviance) that understand credit union realities—regulation, culture, member expectations—are worth far more than generic tech.

How this fits into your broader AI roadmap

If you’re already exploring AI for:

• Member service automation (chat, secure messaging)
• Fraud detection
• Competitive intelligence
• Personal financial wellness tools

…then home equity lending is a natural next pillar. Or, if you’re just starting, it can be the first concrete win in your AI journey.

Each successful project builds:

• Internal confidence
• Better data foundations
• A culture that sees AI as a member experience tool, not a threat

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Where to Go From Here

Home equity lending gives credit unions a rare mix: strong member demand, solid collateral, and huge room for process improvement. AI and automation turn that opportunity into a strategic advantage—if you keep the relationship at the center.

The path is straightforward:

1. Map your current HELOC journey and find the friction
2. Decide what you’ll automate so staff can focus on advice, not admin
3. Pilot an AI-enabled home equity workflow and iterate fast
4. Keep transparency, fairness, and financial wellness as non-negotiables

If you’re serious about AI for credit unions and truly member-centric banking, home equity is where you can prove it—not in a slide deck, but in approvals that are faster, clearer, and more human than what big banks offer.

The next generation of members won’t ask whether you’re using AI. They’ll judge you on how easy it is to get things done, and how heard they feel in the process. Now’s the moment to lead, not react.