Established in 1987, Leeds Credit Union (LCU) began as a staff credit union for the city council, before opening their doors in 1997 to everyone living or working within the local authority area. In 2024, LCU partnered with LendingMetrics to implement the Auto Decision Platform (ADP) to enhance efficiency and deliver a better service to their members. Today, they serve more than 37,000 members across a geographical common bond covering Leeds, Wakefield, and Barking & Dagenham, offering simple savings products and affordable personal loans of up to £25,000.
LCU pride themselves on being a sustainable, member-focused co-operative, committed to supporting their community. They work with a range of third-sector organisations, such as food banks, to encourage saving and help members build financial safety nets. They also work closely with the England Illegal Money Lending Team (IMLT) to combat illegal lending. Their mission is to provide commercially viable access to financial products and services, offering support to the financially excluded or vulnerable who are often overlooked by mainstream lenders.
By the end of 2025, the credit union is projected to reach an approximate £10 million loan volume, a level of growth that would have been challenging with their previous decisioning processes. To support this increase, they will continue using ADP to deliver faster loan decisions, all without the need for additional underwriters.
The challenge
Before switching to LendingMetrics, they found that their previous provider lacked both the service levels and functionality needed to support their growth goals. The system was considered outdated and required manual, time-consuming checks across various platforms to complete routine tasks such as AML, KYC, and credit checks.
The solution
ADP was the solution of choice for several reasons. After exploring multiple options, LCU found that LendingMetrics offered not only a highly sophisticated and capable platform, but one that was also cost-effective. They valued the efficiency of implementation and delivery, particularly highlighting the business analysis resource as a significant benefit. Many of ADP’s capabilities are fully functional from the onset, removing the need for any lengthy development process. In addition, the platform is highly scalable, with no restrictions or caps on lending volumes—exactly what the credit union needed to support their growth objectives.
Since implementation, their application-to-loan times have improved by over 70%, with more than 95% of applications now completed within 24 hours. In line with their wider business goals, the credit union has been able to increase lending volumes without the need to recruit additional underwriters.
Two features stood out as particular favourites. The first is the Equifax API integration, which enables several areas of customer data to be accessed in one place. AML, KYC, and credit checks can be completed seamlessly within the platform, significantly streamlining their workflow and delivering a major improvement to the user experience.
The second is the ability to use custom datasets, which makes it easy to upload and update key information for use in scorecards. This gives them the flexibility to make faster, more accurate adjustments to lending criteria while reducing manual work.
There’s no reason why we can’t embrace the best technology to help ourselves and give our members a better service.
The Future
Over the past year, ADP has transformed LCU’s lending process, enabling them to build strong trust in the platform and the decisions it delivers. With this confidence, they plan to incorporate greater levels of automation into their processes to further support lending growth.
They also intend to make use of ADP’s Passive Engines—decision engines that apply live applicant data to test alternative decisioning strategies without impacting actual outcomes. This will allow the credit union to effectively trial and refine changes to their lending policy before implementing them in a live environment.
By combining the power of automation with innovative testing capabilities, LCU is well positioned to continue enhancing their services and delivering greater value to their members.
