Sandstone Technology recently took part in the FST Banking Summit 2025 in Sydney, Australia where industry leaders gathered to discuss the future of financial services. As part of this event, our Chief Customer Officer, Jennifer Harris, led four dynamic roundtable discussions with senior decision-makers from banks and financial institutions on "Optimising Loan Origination: Modernising Processes for Efficiency and Growth."
The conversations centred on the evolving needs of customers, the pressure to deliver faster and more intuitive lending experiences, and the importance of balancing innovation with risk and compliance.
The collective insight paints a clear picture: efficiency is the new currency, and technology is its enabler.
In this article, Jennifer shares these insights and key takeaways from these discussions, highlighting the practical steps institutions can take to modernise their loan origination strategies for long-term success.
Reimagining Loan Origination: How Technology is Redefining Efficiency in Lending
In today’s fast-evolving financial landscape, loan origination is undergoing a seismic shift. What was once a manual, paper-heavy, and drawn-out process is being reshaped by technological innovation. The objective? Streamlining workflows, accelerating decisions, and elevating customer experiences without compromising regulatory compliance or responsible lending principles.
From Bottleneck to Breakthrough: The Role of Key Technologies
The consensus was clear, most institutions have already embarked on or are amid a lending technology transformation. The standout enablers? Integrated loan origination systems, digital KYC, automated credit decisioning, and real-time onboarding platforms. These tools consolidate workflows, reduce manual errors, and drastically cut approval times.
Some institutions are achieving full mortgage approvals in under 24 hours — a remarkable feat in an industry long plagued by paperwork and lagging approval times. But speed isn’t just about competitive advantage, it’s about taking customers off the market quickly and responsibly. Achieving that kind of responsiveness demands a high level of automation paired with risk intelligence.
Where Automation Delivers Real Impact
Automation is proving most impactful in areas like data capture, credit risk analysis, KYC, document processing, and fraud detection. These functions, once labour-intensive, are now ripe for robotic process automation (RPA) and AI-driven enhancements.
But not everything can or should be automated. For complex scenarios like commercial lending, agriculture financing, and large-ticket loans, human expertise remains essential. Here, decisions often hinge on nuanced risk assessment, intricate financial structures, and the trust cultivated through personal interaction. In these cases, a well-designed digital-to-human workflow becomes the real differentiator.
Smart Workflows: Blending Automation with Human Insight
Financial institutions are finding success in defining smart workflows—where automation handles the repetitive and predictable, and human advisors step in for nuanced judgement. By setting clear service level agreements (SLAs) around response times and automating everything that doesn't require a human touch, organisations are creating frictionless yet flexible loan journeys.
Moreover, differentiating workflows for new versus existing customers—asking only what’s necessary—avoids redundancy and keeps the process efficient. The result is a streamlined yet personalised experience, tailored to risk appetite and customer history.
Data-Driven Personalisation: Speed Meets Relevance
AI and machine learning are transforming personalisation from a marketing buzzword into a critical driver of conversion. Real-time data analysis allows banks to understand a borrower’s cash flow, predict needs, and make tailored pre-approval offers in minutes—not days.
Pre-populating application forms with existing customer data eliminates add personalisation and allows the financial institution to only ask questions for which they do not already have the answers. Meanwhile, tools like Experian, Credit Savvy, and internal AI engines enable behavioural profiling and predictive lead scoring, significantly improving application-to-approval rates.
But this powerful capability hinges on data trustworthiness and governance. Institutions are investing heavily in robust data strategies to ensure integrity, accuracy, and compliance—ensuring that AI doesn’t just act fast, but acts responsibly.
Crafting Seamless Omni-channel Journeys
A unified experience across web, mobile, and advisor-led channels is no longer optional—it’s expected. Customers want consistency, whether they’re starting their application online or finalising it through a call.
To achieve this, banks are building once and deploying across all channels, underpinned by API strategies, standardised data models, and integrated systems. End-to-end visibility of the loan journey, clear status updates, and coordinated back-end systems are essential to delivering an omni-channel experience that feels seamless and responsive. Having one source of truth is paramount to success.
The Road Ahead: Human-Centric Automation
While the allure of automation is strong, the most forward-thinking institutions are those that blend it with human connection. For many, the end goal isn’t just a faster process—it’s a better one. One that is efficient yet empathetic, digital yet personal, and fast yet thoughtful.
The future of loan origination is not about choosing between people and technology. It’s about empowering both to do what they do best—machines handling scale and speed, humans providing trust and judgement. Together, they are rewriting the rules of lending.
So What Are The 5 Key Takeaways?
- Efficiency is the New Competitive Edge
Institutions that have embraced digital transformation in lending are realising substantial gains in processing speed, cost reduction, and customer satisfaction. Full mortgage approvals in under 24 hours are now possible —dramatically improving conversion rates and customer retention.
- End-to-End Automation Creates Impact
High-value automation areas include data capture, credit decisioning, KYC, document handling, and fraud detection. These technologies reduce manual workloads, lower error rates, and improve time-to-yes, all while ensuring compliance and risk oversight.
- Balance is Critical: Automation + Human Expertise
While automation excels in standardised, low-complexity lending, human involvement remains vital for high-value, complex, or trust-based scenarios such as SME lending, commercial financing, and refinancing. Smart workflow design is key — route routine tasks to machines and exceptions to human advisors.
- Data and AI Are Reshaping Personalisation
AI and real-time data analytics allow banks to deliver faster, more relevant loan offers. Institutions are leveraging behavioural profiling, predictive lead scoring, and pre-filled applications to significantly increase application-to-approval conversion rates. Trusted data strategies are essential to make this scalable and compliant.
- Omni-channel Consistency is Non-Negotiable
Customers expect a seamless experience across digital and human channels. Leading institutions are investing in platform interoperability, API-driven ecosystems, and unified data models to ensure that a loan journey started on one channel can be completed effortlessly on another.
The Bottom Line
Technology is not just accelerating loan origination; it’s redefining what’s possible. For banks that embrace this transformation, the payoff is clear: faster decisioning, lower operational costs, higher customer satisfaction, and improved risk management. The institutions that succeed will be those that modernise with purpose, blending innovation with trust, speed with prudence, and automation with human touch.
