United StatesFinance and insurance2023 – ongoingCustomers Bank
OpenAI-built automation of lending, onboarding and payments
Customers Bank says OpenAI tools freed about 28,000 hours and now aims to close commercial loans in a week
Problem
At Customers Bank, a Pennsylvania regional bank with nearly $26 billion in assets, commercial loan closings took 30 to 45 days of underwriting, document collection and legal negotiation, and opening a complex commercial account took more than a day.
Approach
The bank adopted ChatGPT Enterprise in 2023 and by 2026 said 75% of staff used OpenAI-powered tools. In April 2026 it signed a multiyear collaboration under which OpenAI engineers work inside the bank to build agents for document collection, credit memos, legal documents, collateral monitoring, digital onboarding and its cubiX payments platform, targeted over six to twelve months.
Results
Takeaway
The bank moved from general tools for staff to custom agents with measurable targets for specific bottlenecks. It estimated about 28,000 hours freed, with targets of about seven days for loan closing and under 20 minutes for onboarding, alongside a lower efficiency ratio.
Categories
- Industry
- Finance and insurance
- Innovation type
- Process innovationOrganization and ways of working
- AI technology
- Generative AIAI agents
- Adoption
- Co-developed with a partner
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
CNBC reported the bank's targets of cutting commercial loan closings from 30 to 45 days to about seven, complex account opening from over a day to under 20 minutes, and its efficiency ratio from about 49 to the low 40s. It says tools built with OpenAI had already freed about 28,000 hours, equal to some 15 full-time roles, and that 75% of staff use them. The agents are meant to be completed in six to twelve months.
CEO Sam Sidhu said AI was already in production and 75% of team members used OpenAI-powered tools. Agents for lending, deposits and payments were the next phase of the multiyear collaboration. Sidhu expected the project to change how the bank operates.
The regional business outlet reports the agreement from the bank's announcement, noting it was an early ChatGPT Enterprise adopter in 2023. It lists the planned areas, from credit memoranda and legal documents to collateral monitoring and onboarding, and OpenAI's role in building custom capabilities under data governance controls. It gives no results to date.
Full details are in the original sources.
