Digital loan payments can unlock fruitful opportunities for operational efficiency and user engagement within the online banking platform.

Loan payments, also referred to as repayments, are a vital part of the ongoing process of servicing loans. After all, it’s no use lending money if you cannot accept payments on those loans! There is a massive opportunity for financial institutions to offer loan payments within the online banking platform, and there are many options available to make it easier than ever for account holders and borrowers to make the payments they need to, while meeting their unique preferences. 

By leveraging Alacriti loan payments within the Alkami digital banking platform, financial institutions can streamline the loan payment process, enhance customer and member satisfaction, improve adoption rates, and unlock significant opportunities for operational efficiency. 

Types of Loan Payments 

Generally speaking, there are two types of loans: 

1. Direct loans: These loans are issued to members or customers who already have a banking relationship with your institution. Individuals with direct loans are more likely to use the online banking platform to service their checking account, savings account, and other financial products that they have within your institution. 
2. Indirect loans: Indirect loans are originated by a third party, such as a dealership or retailer, on behalf of a financial institution. These loans allow consumers to finance purchases directly at the point of sale, with the institution handling the loan servicing and underwriting processes behind the scenes. In this case, the consumer may not yet have a banking relationship with your institution. For example, if they only have an auto loan, their main goal is to pay that loan and they may have no intention of signing up for a banking account at your institution. 

Different options should be made available to service these two groups, with further consideration given to the demographics and financial status of the account holder. Payment preferences will vary across generations and depending on circumstance. Some individuals may need the ability to make split transactions, and others may need “pay-as-you-go” features. When offering loan payments within your online banking platform, you must meet the account holder or borrower with their preferences – where they want to make a payment, how they want to make a payment, and when they want to make a payment. By reducing friction at all points of the loan payments process, your financial institution can create a simple and delightful user experience while enhancing operational efficiency. 

Benefits of Modernized Loan Payments 

By implementing a modern loan payments strategy, financial institutions can unlock a range of benefits that impact not only end users but also their staff and institution as a whole. 

• Ease of Use: It is crucial to make it as easy as possible for the end user to make a payment while providing them with control over the payment methods, types, and scheduling. With an intuitive loan payment process, users will feel empowered to self-serve this functionality, and will be less likely to turn to your call center for help. 
• Greater Adoption: By offering a wider variety of digital payment options, there is a greater chance your users will have access to an option that best meets their preferences over cumbersome payment experiences or more traditional options such as mailing in a check, or contacting the call center to make a payment over the phone. With digital loan payments, users will have greater control over not only making payments, but modifying their payments as needed. 
• Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings: By creating a self-service loan payment experience that automates key processes on the backend, financial institutions can realize a tremendous impact on their operational efficiency and especially on call center and support staff. Digital loan payments reduce the tedious and time-consuming processes associated with having to manually upload a file to the banking core to process a payment. Financial institutions will no longer have to manually balance, settle, and reconcile the payment. With all of these backend processes handled in an automated fashion, this allows them to scale their loan payments with less staff intervention required—freeing up staff resources to be directed toward other priorities.  
• Supplement fee income: Financial institutions also have the ability to capture convenience fees with debit card payments to help offset the costs of processing the loan payments. This approach can work especially well for indirect borrowers paying via a guest payment channel. 

Payment Channel Options 

Long gone are the days of limited and clunky loan payments. There are a number of channels that Alkami offers in partnership with Alacriti, to provide greater choice and convenience to your online banking platform users and indirect borrowers. 

1. Guest Web: This is an ideal payment channel for institutions handling a large indirect loan portfolio. Guest web allows borrowers to make authenticated one-time payments without needing an account, which reduces friction, increases payment compliance, and enhances satisfaction. Additionally, it minimizes your financial institution’s administrative burden by streamlining payment processing and reducing manual entry errors, making it a cost-effective and efficient solution for managing indirect loans. 
2. Progressive Web App: Loan payments can also be made via a progressive web app, which is intended to work on any platform with a standards-compliant browser, including desktop and mobile devices.   
3. Guest Pay by Text: This channel allows a user to enroll and approve payments by replying to text alerts, which is a great option for users to quickly pay their loans “on the go” without having to log into any systems or interact with a representative. 
4. Direct Chatbot: Financial institutions can also enable authenticated payments through an integrated chatbot on your website, such as Eltropy or Glia. With the help of chatbot automation, this is another self-service option for payers. 
5. Alkami Transfer Widget: This approach will provide your users with a simple and integrated experience to pay their loans without having to navigate outside of the online banking platform.

Bring Digital Loan Payments to Your Online Banking Platform

Check out our On-Demand Product Showcase | Streamlining Loan Payments for Operational Efficiency and Cost Savings featuring payments experts, Stuart Bain, SVP, Alacriti and Jeff Bucher, Senior Product Manager, Alkami, who share their experiences and proven strategies for integrating loan payments in digital banking.  

If you’d like to chat with Alkami about your payments strategy or want to get more information about how to integrate loan payments functionality from Alacriti into your online banking platform, schedule a chat with us today.