Server: Netscape-Communications/1.1 Date: Thursday, 18-Dec-97 06:52:13 GMT Last-modified: Tuesday, 09-Dec-97 15:18:00 GMT Content-length: 6954 Content-type: text/html Harland Platform Automation Success Story

Success Stories

Platform Automation Success Story:

National Penn Bank

Boyertown, Pennsylvania

 

Issue

What's the best way to efficiently and accurately collect account and loan information from customers at the branch level? According to Jeff Tintle, vice president of information systems, "the key to superior service is incorporating technology with sales." National Penn wanted to empower its Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) with the ability to automatically upload customer information to the bank's mainframe. To accomplish this, National Penn looked for a platform automation system with time-saving capabilities.

Project

The $1.5 billion bank turned to Harland's Platform Publisher(, Loan Publisher( and App Publisher( products to improve its operational efficiency. With Platform Publisher, CSRs were able to access the bank's customer information file (CIF) to instantly add new name records, verify existing records and add new products to customers' accounts while the customer is in the branch. The system guarantees the integrity of National Penn's CIF by preventing multiple name records from being created for the same customer. In addition, Platform Publisher can be customized to gather additional data.

"We've added fields to collect information on how the customer found out about our bank, whether deposit money is new or from another bank, who our customers' prior financial institution was and why they left. That way we can find out how we are doing on the marketing and advertisinw sides as well," Tintle said.

The National Penn team found gathering loan information electronically facilitates the decision-making process. Loan Publisher and App Publisher let the bank capture loan applications on personal computers, save the data over a wide area network (WAN) and import the information to a credit bureau for a quick response. Once National Penn approves or disapproves the loan, the decision is immediately sent back to the branch via fax.

"After we send a decision to the branch, the branch office tells us if the customer has accepted the loan. Next we prepare the documents and remote print over the WAN to the branch," Tintle explained. "The loan is settled, the money is disbursed and the information is uploaded onto the mainframe-it's that easy."

Results

In the past, National Penn had to send account information from the branch via messenger service to a remote location for mainframe processing. With platform automation, the bank has eliminated this time delay. In account origination, Tintle said the branches saved about 25% in terms of total cycle time and a full day in elapsed time. For example, customers can have their deposits immediately posted onto the mainframe instead of waiting 24 hours for the data to be recorded onto the bank's system.

On the loan side, information that used to be keyed in up to seven times is now keyed in once. Overall, the bank saved about an hour in decision time and a day and a half in cycle time.

Furthermore, the automated systems enhanced interaction between CSRs and customers. "Because of the way you open an account or apply for a loan with the system, the CSRs have to communicate with the customer even more effectively then they did before. The platform system necessitates an exchange of information that allows us to better ascertain our customers' needs."



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