Roostify Partnership – Smarter Mortgage Lending

Overview

Mortgage lending has long been one of the slowest, most paper-heavy processes in banking — frustrating customers and limiting growth.

Through a strategic partnership with Roostify, we integrated AI-powered workflows to dramatically accelerate approvals, automate document handling, and unlock a new standard of efficiency.

This was more than a tech integration. It was a cultural shift inside the organization — showing that speed, automation, and better customer experience could coexist without increasing risk.

My Role

As part of a three-person Digital Strategy team reporting to the Head of Consumer Banking, I led key product & partnerships enablement workstreams:

• Led the Roostify partnership strategy, working across lending, credit risk, and compliance teams.
• Redesigned the mortgage application journey to embed AI verification and smart workflows.
• Built the change management plan to drive adoption across front-line and back-office teams.
• Established success metrics tied to approval time reduction, manual work elimination, and NPS lift.

Key Contributions and Wins

• Reduced mortgage approval times by 40%, from application to conditional approval.
• Decreased manual document processing by 60%, freeing up underwriters for higher-value work.
• Improved customer satisfaction scores by 35%, measured via NPS and internal surveys.
• Created a reusable AI integration playbook for expansion into other lending products.

Challenges and Solutions

• Overcoming skepticism about AI reliability and decision-making accuracy in regulated workflows.
• Integrating with legacy mortgage servicing systems that were not API-friendly.
• Managing change fatigue across teams used to manual processes and waterfall project cycles.

What I Learned

• AI succeeds when it enhances, not replaces, human judgment. Underwriters embraced automation once it made their jobs easier, not obsolete.
• Legacy systems are rarely the bottleneck. Culture and process inertia are often bigger barriers than technology.
• Partnerships work best when internal teams co-own the solution. Change is faster when people feel they helped design it.

Conclusion

The Roostify partnership proved that digital transformation in lending is possible — but only if you align technology, process, and people. It taught me that real operational lift happens when you redesign incentives and experiences together — not just bolt new tech onto old workflows.