NASHVILLE, Tenn.— In 2024, data from Callahan’s shows credit unions helped some four-million Americans buy cars. Of those, 36% did so through the Origence platform and, according to the company, even more is yet to come—and not just with autos.
Origence, which began its life as CU Direct Lending as part of the California Credit Union League 31 years ago, is now a CUSO with 124 credit union-owners, 1,800 CU clients, and approximately 100,000 users on its platform at any one time.
The company, which funded $53 billion in loans for two-million members in 2024, has done $600-billion in funded loans since its creation, according to CEO Tony Boutelle, who offered an update on Origence’s progress and what’s to come in remarks before the company’s Lending Tech Live 2025 event in Nashville.
‘Everything, Everywhere’
“I would say this last year has been everything, everywhere, all at once,” said Boutelle, before adding that that scenario will only be accelerating.
Boutelle said Origence has been focusing its significant investments in ways to drive greater efficiencies for credit unions, especially in artificial intelligence.
While the company will continue to support all of the traditional channels, Boutelle said it is also pouring investments into numerous new channels, as shown in this graphic.
“All auto loans at one time were generated at the dealership. Today, it’s about 61%,” said Boutelle in describing the evolution in a marketplace where Origence provides support for loans for ATVs, RVs, and other types of vehicles beyond just new and used autos.
The New Dealers
Today, there are all the new types of dealerships with which it has partnerships, such as Carvana, as well as the direct-to-consumer EV manufacturers, which typically have no or very limited bricks-and-mortar stores. In 2024, for example, Origence did more than $1 billion in loans through Tesla.
While he declined to identify the companies involved, Boutelle said Origence is in discussions with 10 other national auto and retail websites, with several under contract.
But plenty of physical dealerships remain, and Origence has relationships with a dealer network of 20,000 stores, according to Boutelle, and as the graphic shows, is responsible for a significant portion of loans in many states, as seen in the chart below.
Dealerships See Value
Success has begotten success, according to Boutelle, and dealerships have come to see the value recognition of making auto loans through credit unions.
As an example, Boutelle said the company just moved Global Credit Union to its platform and it did $133 million in loans during May alone.
Seeking to improve the lending experience, Boutelle said Origence has partnered with Alloy, eltropy, InformedIQ, Savvymoney, Scienaptic and Zest.
It has added as partners in loan refinancing gravity lending, RefiJet, the Savings Group, Caribou and iLending Direct.
Turning to AI
And as part of its expansive effort to drive efficiencies, Origence has turned to AI-powered document processing automation through a partnership it entered into 18 months ago with InformedIQ. It has done more than five-million documents to date.
As an example, Boutelle -pointed to America First Credit Union in Utah, where 14% of the $200 million of loans it averages per month are done without human intervention. At America First, the average funded deals per funder has risen to 32 from 24.
As the CU Daily also previously reported, Boutelle said Origence has introduced eContracting, which is now available in all markets. eContracting offers real-time validation, reduction in errors for faster funding, LOS integration and eVault storage, he said.
“Dealers want you on it,” said Boutelle. “The big dealer groups, in particular.”
Additional Updates
Other points made by Boutelle as part of his opening remarks included:
Origence Lending Services
Origence Lending Services provides backoffice processing. It currently has 167 CUs using its 24/7 underwriting and processing support.
Platform Modernization
The final piece in creating new efficiencies has been in platform modernization, according to Boutelle. The company is now going to a cloud-native architecture, it has expanded its API ecosystem, has done a complete UI/UX overhaul and is focused on AI-enabled automation, he said.
Investments
Boutelle said Origence has $52 million budgeted in 2025 in strategic priorities, and that it now has five iterative product delivery planning cycles each year.
Being a CUSO
“We are all about being a CUSO. We are 100% owned by 124 credit unions,” Boutelle said. “We are not a fintech that is going to sell. We are here to help you stay relevant…”
Boutelle noted a share of stock in the original CU Direct in 1998 was valued at $100. Today, it’s valued at $7,020, with a three-way stock split coming on Aug. 1