Texas Borrower Friction Leaderboard: 111 Institutions Scored
By Shanelle Roberts, Smart Chic Systems, Inc. · Published July 2026
111 institutions scored · $1B–$10B in assets · Texas
Every institution below is a Texas bank or credit union between $1B and $10B in assets, assessed against the Borrower Friction Index (BFI): 45 signals identifying where mortgage prospects leave before they apply. Higher scores mean more borrower friction. The institutions at the top are leaving the most on the table.
What was reviewed and how
Each institution was scored from its public digital mortgage footprint. No internal data is required and none was used: product pages, rate disclosures, advisor profiles, application paths, and social presence, exactly what a prospective borrower encounters without staff assistance.
Assessments are run on a rolling basis and reflect conditions observed at the time of review. Institutions may have since updated their digital presence; scores are not retroactively revised. Full methodology, and what each score actually means, is below the leaderboard.
45 signals, four domains, one Friction Score.
The Borrower Friction Index (BFI) is a 45-signal framework that audits every touchpoint a mortgage prospect encounters before they submit an application. It measures what happens between "I'm thinking about a mortgage" and "I actually applied": the window where most institutions lose borrowers they never knew they had. Signals are detected entirely from what a borrower can observe without staff assistance. If a borrower cannot find it on their own, the signal is flagged.
Four domains
Website Friction
Missing rates, broken application paths, absent pre-qualification tools, incomplete advisor profiles
Fraud Indicators
Patterns that trigger a borrower's fraud instincts and cause abandonment
Compliance Gaps
Missing regulatory disclosures that erode trust and create legal exposure
Social Media Gaps
No qualification criteria in content, no product-specific calls to action, inquiries answered generically or not at all
How signals are weighted
A condition that directly blocks or terminates a borrower's independent path to applying. The prospect cannot proceed without staff intervention, and most will not seek it. Critical Gaps are the primary driver of the Friction Score and represent recoverable loan volume.
A friction point that does not fully block the path but meaningfully reduces the probability a prospect continues. Signals compound: an institution with 20 Signals alongside 3 Critical Gaps is losing borrowers at multiple stages of the same funnel.
Fraud indicators are not evidence an institution is doing anything improper. They are patterns borrowers associate with suspicious behavior regardless of actual legitimacy. Compliance gaps are missing regulatory disclosures (NMLS IDs, APR disclosure, Equal Housing designation) that create dual exposure: reduced borrower trust and observable non-compliance. Social media gaps are active channels generating reach without doing any qualification work. All three appear throughout the BFI as Critical Gaps or Signals depending on severity.
How the sample breaks down
Banks in the sample carry roughly twice the critical-gap volume of credit unions on average.
Friction Score = (Critical Gaps × 3) + Signals. Most institutions cluster in the 11–25 range; the 11 institutions above 76 are carrying the most friction on the table.
See where your institution ranks among all 111
The full leaderboard, ranked by Friction Score with every institution named, is shared directly with lending executives and their teams rather than posted publicly. Tell us your institution and work email, and we'll send the access password straight to your inbox.
Access is limited to the 111 institutions scored on this leaderboard, requested from a work email. Not one of the 111? Request your own Signal Report instead.
The leaderboard scores what's visible from the outside. The Borrower Experience Review audits your borrower's online application experience & prototypes how to fix the gaps.
Every score above was identified from an institution's public digital footprint. No internal access was used. That's exactly what the BFI is built to do: surface what a borrower encounters before they ever apply.
What happens inside the application requires a different kind of access: borrower-perspective access. That is what the Borrower Experience Review delivers. A researcher goes through your application as a well-qualified borrower, documents every trust gap and friction point on screen with narration, and delivers a written Signal Report with findings ranked by severity.
The leaderboard above is the evidence base the Borrower Experience Review methodology is built on. The signals scored across 111 institutions inform exactly what to look for when the walkthrough goes inside your specific application.
Report, video, debrief, prototype
- Product Signal Report (all 45 BFI signals)
- Narrated video walkthrough from the borrower's perspective
- 60-minute live leadership debrief
- Coded interactive prototype preview
Limited to 8 engagements per month
Opens the secure checkout page, then payment via Stripe. No call required.
Need a smaller first step? Start with the $3,000 Audit or a $1,000 Signal Report. The Audit's full price applies toward the Review later.
About Shanelle Roberts
Shanelle Roberts is a customer acquisition researcher and systems designer based in Waco, Texas. She has spent 20 years in product and systems design across T-Mobile, Wilmington Trust, M&T Bank, Microsoft, Expedia, and the UN World Food Programme, including 2.5 years inside a regional bank where she led the design team that built the first secure digital payment experience for an institution where fraud had cost mid eight figures across three prior years.
She holds a U.S. Utility Patent from T-Mobile and designed the iOS version of Scam Shield, which stopped over two billion robocalls in its first 18 months.
The leaderboard on this page was built using the same Borrower Friction Index methodology used in every Signal Report and Borrower Experience Review engagement: public digital footprint analysis with no internal access required.
Smart Chic Systems, Inc. is based in Waco, Texas. All client engagements are delivered by US-based practitioners.
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