Credit Cushion

Home Page of Credit Cushion
Products Page
List of Loans on the Credit Cushion Portal
Loan Details Page
Loan Assistant
Loan Contract sent with Credit Cushion
Customer Hardship Form
Hardship Details of the Customer (being reviewed by the loan provider)
Variation of Contract sent to Customer (generated with Credit Cushion AI)

Inspiration

Feeling the Pain

We've all been there: life happens. Whether it's a job loss, a medical emergency, or unexpected expenses, financial hardship can strike anyone, anytime.

A Broken System

Consider the Customer

Unfortunately, when customers face these challenges, the process of seeking relief from lenders can be a daunting and time-consuming ordeal. From navigating complex websites to filling out endless forms, the experience is often far from empathetic. For example :

A maze of forms and endless waiting.
A bureaucratic hurdle, adding to the burden.
Another complex process, draining energy and hope.

Consider the Loan Provider

Overwhelmed staff: Drowning in paperwork and manual verification.
Inefficient processes: Slowing down relief and increasing operational costs.

A Simpler Solution

We believe there's a better way. By streamlining the hardship process for both customers and lenders, we can make it easier to access the support needed during difficult times.

What it does

Credit Cushion transforms financial hardship management into a smooth journey. With built-in DocuSign integration, we help financial providers deliver faster resolutions while building customer trust.

As a loan Provider.

🚀 Logging in to Credit Cushion using DocuSign login.
✨ Ability to load a loan template and connect configuration to DocuSign with just a click of a button from Credit Cushion, and I'm onboarded.
📋 Able to Create a Webform from the template on the DocuSign platform, so that I can create and send loan envelopes to the customer. This webform would automatically contain loan details like Loan start date, end date, repayment amount, interval etc, so that these details can be populated in the loan envelope being sent to the customer.
💸 View all the loans being sent to customers within the credit cushion platform, with DocuSign Login, and all details associated with the loan, such as - Loan Details like Repayment Start Date, End Date etc. - Representative of the loan - Particular DocuSign envelope associated with the loan. - Any hardship details associated with the loan
- 😭 When there are hardship requests associated with the loan. These hardship requests from the customers are evaluated by Credit Cushion AI, and a variation of contract is generated by the Credit Cushion AI, if the application seems legit, and the variation requested for is under a reasonable amount. As a loan provider, I review the "Variation of Contract" generated by the Credit Cushion AI and make sure it all looks good and send it over to the customer for signing, thus approving their hardship application and granting them the variation of contract.
- 💬 The Credit Cushion platform also has a "Loan Assistant" that answers any question that the loan provider or the customer may have about the loan. For example, "What happens if the customer repays the loan early ? Are there any fees or penalties associated with it"

As a customer.

✍️ I am able to fill out my loan details with the loan provider using DocuSign Webforms, which makes the loan application process seamless.
✉️ Receive the loan envelope sent to me, and sign it with DocuSign.
😇 When I encounter a hardship, I come to the Credit Cushion Website and I fill out a form, which is then evaluated by Credit Cushion AI and tells me if there is any more supporting information that I need to add to my hardship application. After I have given, enough context and information about my hardship, the Credit Cushion AI generates a variation of contract for me immediately for the loan provider to review, or refers the case entirely to the loan provider if the scope of the variation is large.

How we built it

Given, we both were primarily TypeScript developers - we decided to use NEXT JS as the platform to build Credit Cushion on with Tailwind CSS for styling and MongoDb for persistence.

Credit Cushion Login was built using Session Cookies (with JoseJWT package) and the DocuSign Auth APIs
Loading of the Personal Loan Template and WebHook Connect Configuration was done using the DocuSign Template API and DocuSign Connect API respectively.
Credit Cushion AI used in features like "Loan Assistant", "Hardship Management" and "Generating Variation of Contract" was built using Google Gemini.
TinyMCE is the WYSIWYG editor used for reviewing the variation of contract generated by Credit Cushion AI.

Challenges we ran into

We were initially building a product called Rush Ready that was aimed at generating waivers for adventure service providers with AI.

Rush Ready was reliant on third party API integrations such as the FareHarbour API and GetYourGuide API for the end to end solution.

However, after two weeks of building it, we realised that it didn't build on existing solutions like WhereWolf and we were reliant on external API integrations that were not self serve, and needed to be manually reviewed and approved by third party platforms like FareHarbour.

Two weeks into the hackathon, we decided to pivot away from RushReady to build Credit Cushion.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We shipped a fully functioning product with a strong integration with DocuSign
Neither of us are from the finance space. So, building Credit Cushion, helped us learn a lot about the finance domain, and how financial hardship is handled across different credit lenders.
This was our first-time working together as a team, we genuinely enjoyed each others company and shipped product features together.

What we learned

Consistency is Key: Consistent effort, even in small increments, can lead to significant progress.
Embrace Change: Sometimes, things don't pan out as we'd hoped, (like building RushReady), and when they do happen, figure a way to adapt and make progress.

What's next for Credit Cushion

Most credit lenders add insurance to the loans they provide to their customers. The next feature was to generate a comprehensive loan insurance policy document for the customer with Credit Cushion AI. And also have the following feature set.

Income Information of customers
Income Verification of customers
Create Insurance Policy Doc based on Loan and Income Information through Credit Cushion AI.