ELGA CU Drives New Auto-Loans with Vertice AI’s Personalization Solution
- Roy Urrico
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
By Roy Urrico
During a Fall 2025 auto-loan campaign, Grand Blanc, Mich.-based ELGA Credit Union combined traditional mass-media promotion with an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven member personalization solution powered by Athens, Ga.-based Vertice AI. The result: more than $5.77 million in new auto-loan balances within 30 days and a 167% higher performance rate compared with non-targeted outreach.
“Implementing Vertice AI aligned with our strategic focus on deepening member relationships through data-driven personalization,” Zach Eychaner, ELGA’s vice president of digital experience, told Finopotamus. “We saw an opportunity to move beyond traditional segmentation methods to expand how precisely we could target members and measure engagement effectiveness. Vertice provided us with a scalable way to apply predictive analytics without expanding internal headcount or adding operational burden.”
The Vertice AI platform’s design helps credit unions improve member engagement, retention, and product adoption the company’s, CEO and co-founder Mitch Rutledge explained to Finopotamus. “Our platform analyzes first-party institutional data alongside enriched third-party insights to generate actionable product participation and propensity scores. These scores identify which members are most likely to benefit from specific products, which relationships require nurturing, and where growth opportunities exist.”
Rutledge continued, “Credit unions use the platform to build highly targeted campaigns, personalize messaging, and optimize engagement across the member lifecycle without requiring internal data scientists or complex infrastructure.”
ELGA Implements Vertice
ELGA Credit Union, a community development financial institution (CDFI) founded in 1951, manages $2.3 billion in assets and serves over 115,000 members across Michigan and Florida.
The credit union implemented Vertice AI in January 2025, following a successful test with Filene FiLab in 2024, as part of ELGA’s broader effort to modernize how it approaches member engagement and growth. “The positive results we experienced, as well as the partnership of the Vertice AI team, paved the way for a wider implementation,” said Eychaner.
Vertice AI has enabled the credit union to deliver more personalized, timely messaging that supports members’ real financial needs at the right moments. “Our strategy has moved beyond primarily leveraging mass promotional outreach to integrating more targeted engagement based on members whose engagement history, financial behavior, and life-stage indicators signify a strong likelihood of adopting a product. As a result, we are experiencing higher engagement, increased portfolio growth, and expanded member relationships,” noted Eychaner.
During the 2025 regional auto-loan campaign, ELGA, through Vertice AI’s predictive modeling, distributed personalized outreach to a targeted list of 13,890 members. Eychaner revealed, “Average loan balances for AI-targeted members exceeded $26,000, which was 48% higher than those of non-targeted groups.” He pointed out the campaign not only drove higher engagement among targeted members; it more than doubled the additional product openings compared to members who only saw broad advertising.
ELGA used AI-driven targeting to identify members most likely to open a direct auto loan. “Vertice AI generated high-propensity audiences using product participation and engagement history, enabling personalized email outreach aligned with those members’ financial profiles,” described Rutledge. “This led to a significant increase in conversion and overall portfolio growth that outperformed ELGA’s previous results with broad awareness marketing campaigns alone.”
The Vertice AI platform continues to deliver, maintained Eychaner. “Beyond the immediate performance lift, our team has gained ongoing visibility into engagement trends, accelerated campaign execution, and built deeper member relationships. We plan to apply data-driven insights across every touchpoint to continue driving growth and strengthening member trust.”
How Vertice AI Helps CUs
Rutledge described Vertice AI as a modern, cloud-based SaaS platform with a fully integrated suite of modules designed to support acquisition, engagement, and relationship expansion, providing seamless integration within institutions’ existing technology ecosystems.
“Outputs such as priority segmented audiences, engagement scores, and campaign recommendations flow directly into CRM (customer relationship management) systems and marketing automation platforms, enabling teams to avoid workflow disruption and activate AI insights inside their current operational environment,” Rutledge said.
Credit unions like ELGA use Vertice AI to complement and amplify existing marketing initiatives with predictive personalization, asserted Rutledge. “Rather than relying on broad marketing to their membership, Vertice AI allows credit unions to tailor campaign outreach and offers based on each member’s needs and financial journey.”
Beyond campaign targeting, credit unions use the platform to measure relationship depth, optimize cross-sell strategies, and prioritize engagement efforts based on growth potential, mentioned Rutledge. “The platform enables marketing teams to operate independently without waiting on IT or external vendors, significantly accelerating campaign execution timelines.”
The benefits have not gone unnoticed. “By the end of 2025, 50 financial institutions (FIs) had partnered with Vertice AI. These FIs consistently report 200-600% higher product adoption rates compared to non-targeted outreach,” said Rutledge.
“Deposit-focused personalization efforts often generate 41% higher initial balances because our solution empowers credit unions to align offers with members most likely to engage,” Rutledge explained. “We often see reported improvements in campaign efficiency, engagement lift, and incremental balance growth when predictive targeting is operationalized inside existing workflows.”
ELGA Credit Union announced on March 9, 2026 it completed acquisition of Vero Beach, Fla.-based Marine Bancorp of Florida, Inc., the holding company for Marine Bank & Trust Company (“Marine Bank”). With the completion of the transaction, Marine Bank was rebranded as: Marine – A Division of ELGA Credit Union.
