Heartland Technology Solutions

Summary

With over $37,000,000 in mortgage closings for 2003 and a loan portfolio of $150 million, Missouri’s Hometown Bank knows repeat business is cultivated by providing customers with a fast and efficient approval process the first time around. Hometown Bank offers financial products and services that include checking and savings, online banking, money market savings, home and construction loans, certificates of deposits, and life insurance to its clients.

Hometown Bank is committed to providing superior customer service and improving the communities that it serves. The financial institution has grown from one location in Carthage to seven locations serving the communities of Carthage, Joplin, Neosho, Oronogo, and Pineville.

Challenge

With the addition of new locations, Hometown Bank needed to provide staff with access to client records. Stretching time frames to locate existing documentation or to copy files from one branch for use at another only delayed this leading loan company's success. Prior to Fortis, relationship managers had to request information from the Credit Admin Center and make copies for faxing or sending via courier service.

Solution

With Westbrook Technologies’ Fortis document management software, Hometown Bank’s Credit Admin Center scans and files all real estate loan documentation for use by its four branches. Loan officers glean enough detailed loan information from these files to make quick and accurate decisions. Requests for additional funds are expedited by a loan officer's ability to view existing loans. For example, if a customer applied for a real estate loan six months ago and now requests a home equity loan, bank officers can access the initial documentation including personal information and eliminate having to complete similar paperwork.

With files accessible by all branches, Hometown Bank can eliminate the need for shadow files – copying a file before taking the original out of the Center. This drastically reduces paper usage and storage space.

Results

Hometown Bank's Project Manager James Troub states that customer service levels have increased through streamlining branch operations with Fortis. "We're utilizing better technology with Fortis, which helps us improve in all areas. We're also alleviating additional work for our Credit Admin staff. Managers log on, search data by the customer's name or loan number and instantly receive feedback." For current loan portfolios, Hometown Bank can copy data over to a new portfolio without having to make hard copies. This is much easier on customers because they don't have to bring all their information back in, he says.

Troub says overall savings are being realized through the elimination of file labor and storage space. By using a centralized scanning system to scan and index at the Center, paper is kept only for a certain amount of time, then discarded.

Additionally, Fortis is being used by Hometown Bank's Human Resources department to manage employee records. With limited access via a built-in security feature within Fortis, a field supervisor can check an employee's file for previous performance reviews and pay rate changes without leaving their office.

The Accounts Payable department is also using Fortis for managing their invoices and checks. Using the Fortis Related Document feature, they can find any invoice that was paid by check or vice versa with just one mouse click.

Troub points out that because banking is a highly regulated industry, the mindset is to be heavily paper oriented. "One of our biggest challenges is quality control. We want to ensure what is in the files is captured. Within 18 -24 months, we should be working at a paper-restricted system where we can start getting rid of the backlog of certain paper," he says.

Other Fortis features that Hometown Bank benefits from include annotations. "What I really like about Fortis is that it comes with a lot of extras. It's great that we can pull up a document, use the annotations (arrows, pencils, redacting, highlighting, etc.) and send it out in a PDF formatted document, just for viewing," says Troub.

Fortis was implemented by Hometown Bank's Westbrook Technologies Partner, Heartland Technology Solutions. "We knew Hometown Bank was a perfect fit for Fortis," says Larry J. Hedin, vice president of Sales and Marketing for Heartland Technology Solutions. "I am very pleased with their commitment to working toward their goals and their forward thinking," says Jane Cage, technical analyst. "We worked closely with Hometown Bank's executive management group to determine the needs of the organization and put together the Fortis solution. We believe the end result is a superior implementation."