Stearns Bank Partners with Truepic to Bring Remote Inspections, Reduced Wait Times to Loans

Overview

Stearns Bank N.A., a Minnesota-based financial institution, has partnered with Truepic—the leader in digital image provenance and authenticity—to innovate and accelerate its equipment lending to thousands of beneficiaries around the country. Stearns Bank has successfully deployed Truepic’s Vision platform to ensure authenticity of media at the point of capture, allowing real-time inspections of equipment finance borrowers anywhere in the world. With this innovation, Stearns Bank has cut its borrowers’ wait times by 4.8 days per loan, or 3,746 days collectively this year.

The platform’s patented fraud detection, image provenance and authentication technology identifies and pre-emptively reduces fraudulent activity and will cut collective costs by over $100,000 this year. In addition, the technology empowers Stearns Bank to conduct inspections remotely and drive down transportation emissions associated with traditional oversight. In 2021, Stearns Bank will have prevented the emissions of over 20,000 pounds of CO2 associated with equipment finance inspections—the equivalent of over 450 trees’ absorption capacity.

“It’s encouraging to partner with a company whose values align with those of Stearns Bank,” said Jill Molitor, Director of Credit & Fraud Strategy at Stearns Bank N.A. “Truepic’s use of technology coupled with their environmental focus reinforce Stearns Bank’s commitment to surpass customer expectations with thorough safety, soundness and a sense of urgency.”

Stearns Bank has successfully conducted authenticated virtual inspections with the Vision platform in hundreds of cities in all 50 states and Canada. Stearns Bank plans to expand its use of Truepic’s technology across multiple lines of operations to amplify and multiply the many cost, time, risk, and environmental benefits. 

“Stearns Bank has been an innovator and was one of the earliest adopters of image authentication technology in the lending and banking industry. We are delighted that our technology can help drive immediate benefits to the bank’s customers and important CO2 reductions for society. We believe this is the future of digital banking and all trust transactions online and this is a wonderful start,” said Craig Stack, Founder and President of Truepic.

About Stearns Bank

Minnesota-based Stearns Bank National Association is a $2.2 billion, independently-owned financial institution with locations in Minnesota, Florida and Arizona, and over 35,000 small business customers nationwide, in every state across the U.S. Recognized as having a bullet-proof balance sheet with 20% capital and earning top rankings as one of the nation’s highest-performing banks by American Banker, and most recently ranked ninth in the U.S. among banks having more than $1 billion in assets by Independent Banker’s May 2021 Best of the Best ranking of banks with the highest 3-year average Return on Assets, Stearns Bank specializes in nationwide commercial construction lending, USDA and SBA lending, and small business and equipment financing. Driven by a passion to help others achieve their greatest ambitions, Stearns Bank mission is to Get the Job Done! For more information, visit StearnsBank.com.

About Truepic

Founded in 2015, Truepic develops the world’s most secure camera technology for mobile devices.  Truepic is the pioneer of secure media provenance through its patented controlled capture system, which empowers viewers to make better-informed decisions through high integrity photos & videos.  The Truepic team is dedicated to restoring trust in every pixel of consequence, with the goal of having a shared sense of visual reality across the internet.