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Financial Services Case Study

Mortgage / Lending Platform

Led product initiatives for a mortgage retention platform, leveraging customer data, scoring models, and targeted outreach to identify at-risk accounts and improve renewal outcomes. Enabled earlier intervention and more effective retention strategies across the lending portfolio.

Company

TD Canada Trust

Timeframe

2019 - 2021

Snapshot

>$2B

Mortgage balances retained

Earlier

Renewal opportunity identification

Lower

Cost to retain vs. reacquire

FintechCustomer dataRetention strategyScoring models

01

Overview

This case study focuses on a mortgage renewal and retention platform designed to identify at-risk customers early, prioritize outreach, and improve renewal outcomes in a regulated financial environment. The product combined customer data, segmentation models, and advisor workflows to enable timely, personalized engagement before customers entered high-risk churn windows.

02

Problem

Renewal opportunities were often identified too late or missed entirely, leading to preventable attrition and reduced portfolio retention. Advisors lacked clear prioritization, and customer data was fragmented across systems, making it difficult to act with the right timing, context, and offer strategy.

03

Users / Stakeholders

Users

  • Mortgage customers approaching renewal windows
  • Advisors and servicing teams prioritizing outreach and offers
  • Internal teams monitoring retention performance and portfolio health

Stakeholders

  • Pricing, risk, and compliance teams defining guardrails
  • Data and analytics teams supporting segmentation and scoring
  • Business leaders focused on retention economics and portfolio value

04

Constraints

  • Operated in a regulated environment with strict compliance and governance requirements
  • Personalization and timing needed to improve retention without increasing operational complexity
  • System design had to balance advisor usability with risk and pricing controls

05

My Role & Ownership

  • Connected business strategy, customer journey design, and technical delivery for renewal programs
  • Partnered with pricing, compliance, analytics, and engineering teams to define MVP scope and rollout strategy
  • Helped shape segmentation logic, prioritization models, and advisor workflows
  • Used customer and performance data to evaluate which cohorts, offers, and channels drove the highest retention impact

06

Approach

  • Focused MVP on earlier identification of renewal opportunities and better cohort prioritization
  • Worked cross-functionally to align business, risk, and delivery teams around a shared workflow
  • Used retention economics and customer timing signals to guide prioritization decisions

07

Solution

Delivered a renewal and retention workflow that surfaced at-risk customers earlier, enabled targeted outreach, and supported advisors with better timing, context, and next-best actions. Integrated customer data, scoring models, and workflow orchestration into a unified system that improved decision-making and execution across the lending portfolio.

08

Technical Design

APIs, integrations, and data systems behind the product.

  • Customer data pipelines feeding segmentation and prioritization workflows
  • Scoring and cohort models for renewal timing and outreach strategy
  • Integration with advisor tools, communication systems, and reporting layers
  • Governance-aware workflow design aligned with compliance and risk requirements

09

Tradeoffs

  • Balanced personalization and timing improvements against compliance and governance constraints
  • Optimized for advisor decision support rather than fully automated renewal handling
  • Prioritized practical execution over overly complex modeling early on

10

Metrics / Outcomes

>$2B

Mortgage balances retained

Retention strategy contributed to preserving significant mortgage balances through earlier intervention

Earlier

Renewal opportunity identification

Teams could act before customers entered high-risk renewal windows

Lower

Cost to retain vs. reacquire

Targeted outreach improved efficiency compared to reacquisition strategies

11

Key Learnings

  • In regulated environments, sequencing the right MVP builds credibility faster than over-engineering
  • Retention improves when customer timing, segmentation, and economics are aligned
  • Cross-functional alignment is critical in lending workflows where trust and accuracy matter