Most new credit union members join for a loan, not a deposit account. Internal studies from several of Clutch’s largest partners show lending products drive over 80% of new account openings, while less than 20% of members join through a deposit offering alone. Yet most digital account opening tools were built with the deposit-first member in mind.
That mismatch creates friction at exactly the moment credit unions can least afford it. A member applies for an auto loan, gets approved, and then hits a clunky, disconnected membership application before the credit union can actually fund the loan. That handoff – built for a paper-based, mid-1990s workflow – is where digital lending experiences break down.
Clutch’s Digital Account Opening was built to close that gap. It extends the same low-friction, data-driven application experience credit unions already use for lending into deposit account opening, so a new member’s loan application and membership application happen as one continuous flow instead of two disconnected ones.
The platform pre-fills personal information from a phone number and the last four digits of a Social Security number, and skips redundant membership questions when an applicant already qualifies by ZIP code. It integrates with account opening partners including MeridianLink, Narmi, Mantl, and FiVision, so credit unions keep the core processing relationships they already have while upgrading the experience layered on top.
For credit unions managing both a lending strategy and a deposit strategy – which, depending on the interest rate cycle, can mean very different priorities – Account Opening gives leadership one onboarding experience that flexes with either goal instead of forcing a choice between them.
Request a demo to see what a unified lending and deposit onboarding flow looks like for your credit union.