Celtic Bank, one of the Central Valley’s Top SBA lenders, using AI to speed up small biz loans

A push to make SBA lending faster

Celtic Bank, one of the most active Small Business Administration lenders serving California’s Central Valley, is adopting new technology to accelerate how small-business loans are processed. On April 29, 2026, the Salt Lake City-based bank announced a partnership with Casca, a San Francisco financial-technology company whose platform uses automation to streamline key parts of the lending workflow.

The change is focused on SBA 7(a) lending, a major federal loan program that helps small businesses secure financing. Under the partnership, Casca’s cloud-based system will handle tasks such as document collection, financial analysis and compliance workflows. In practical terms, that means fewer manual steps inside the bank and a potentially faster path for borrowers seeking capital.

Why Celtic Bank matters in the Central Valley

The move stands out because Celtic Bank already plays an outsized role in the regional lending market. It ranked third on The Business Journal’s 2025 list of SBA lenders in the Central Valley by dollar amount, issuing $8.77 million in loans even though it does not operate physical branches in the region.

That detail is important for the Valley’s business community. It suggests that access to financing is increasingly being shaped by digital banking infrastructure rather than by branch networks alone. For entrepreneurs and smaller firms across the region, especially those that may struggle with long approval timelines or paperwork-heavy loan processes, a more automated system could reduce friction at a critical moment.

How the new platform is expected to work

Casca is positioning its software as a faster alternative to older lending systems that often take months, and sometimes far longer, to install and customize. Celtic Bank is using the platform to support its ambitions in small-dollar SBA lending, an area where efficiency can matter as much as underwriting quality because the economics of smaller loans are often constrained by labor-intensive processing.

Todd Boren, Celtic Bank’s president and chief operating officer, framed the partnership as a response to those operational demands.

“We’ve been looking for a technology partner that can keep up with our ambitions for small-dollar SBA lending.”

The emphasis is not just on speed for its own sake. The goal is to make the lending operation more scalable, allowing the bank to process more applications without relying entirely on the slower, more manual procedures associated with legacy systems.

Preferred lender status gives the bank added leverage

Celtic Bank’s existing role in SBA lending also gives this technology shift more weight. The bank has held SBA Preferred Lender status since 2013, which allows it to approve loans directly without waiting for federal review on each file. When that authority is paired with a more automated origination system, the result could be a noticeably quicker lending pipeline.

That combination matters because speed in small-business finance can shape whether a company expands, covers short-term cash needs or delays investment. Faster underwriting and compliance processing may help businesses move sooner on hiring, equipment purchases or other growth plans.

What Casca says it is trying to deliver

Lukas Haffer, Casca’s chief executive, described the platform as a tool meant to broaden access to capital while supporting economic activity at the community level. The broader pitch is familiar in financial technology: use software to reduce administrative burden, improve consistency and make smaller transactions more viable for lenders.

Even so, Celtic Bank has not announced specific production goals tied to the partnership. There is no public target yet for how many additional SBA loans it expects to originate or how much faster applications might move once the new system is fully deployed.

Why this matters for technology and the Valley economy

For the Central Valley, the development reflects a larger shift in how AI-driven and automated systems are being inserted into traditional industries. Banking, like agriculture, logistics and health care, is increasingly using software not just for analytics but for decisions and workflows that were once handled mostly by staff.

In this case, the significance lies in how technology may reshape a foundational business service: access to credit. If automation shortens turnaround times and lowers internal costs, more lenders may see small-business loans as easier to originate at scale. That could be especially meaningful in the Central Valley, where many firms depend on timely financing but may not have the same access to large capital networks found in bigger coastal markets.

The partnership also shows that the region’s business environment is being influenced by technology providers outside the Valley, even when the local impact is direct. A bank headquartered in Salt Lake City and a technology firm based in San Francisco are now connected through a lending model that could affect entrepreneurs across Valley communities. The outcome will depend on execution, but the direction is clear: automation is becoming part of the basic infrastructure of small-business finance.

Central Valley AI is produced by the CVAI Business Desk team and developed by Kaweah Tech, a regional firm that builds, deploys, and integrates AI solutions for businesses across California's Central Valley.

Source

https://thebusinessjournal.com/celtic-bank-casca-ai-sba-lending-central-valley/