Nevada State Banks with MoneyLine

Aiming to become more competitive in the mortgage market, Nevada State Bank (Las Vegas) has turned to MoneyLine Lending services, a provider of outsourced mortgage software solutions.

The bank, with assets of $2.8 billion, wanted to increase its number of mortgage customers because of the overall boost in home sales, says chairman, CEO and president of Nevada State Bank, Bill Martin. With more than 60 branches, the bank chose to outsource to MoneyLine (Irvine, Calif.) so it would not have to change its in-house mortgage department, while still fulfilling the needs of customers needing a mortgage.

"Las Vegas last year sold 20,000 new homes and 35,000 existing homes. This is a very good mortgage market," Martin says. "We wanted to have the ability to immediately handle a very high volume of applications because we are state-wide. We have 62 branches so we get a lot of applications."

Nevada State Bank chose MoneyLine Lending services-introduced by the bank's parent company, Zions Bancorp. (Salt Lake City)-to provide mortgage products without the extra cost and time spent on revamping the bank's current mortgage department. Martin says if the Nevada State Bank had rebuilt its current mortgage department, the cost would have been much more than what the bank was willing to spend.

"When the MoneyLine solution came along, which was an outsource, that just seemed preferable to making what probably would have been a half-a-million to three-quarter-of-a-million dollar investment," says Martin. "Two good reasons to outsource are: 'Can you get something done cheaper than you can do it yourself?' And 'Can someone else do it better than we can?' There is a little bit of both in this solution because we didn't have that big of a front-end investment to make, and MoneyLine was already up and running with a large staff and they were very good at it."

Although Nevada State Bank's mortgage department still exists, MoneyLine handles most of the inquiries from customers. For example, a customer who goes to the bank's Web site, or who calls for information regarding mortgage and lending, is directed to MoneyLine, which then processes the loan applications. The bank's previous mortgage department still brings in clients and also takes care of special types of loans and mortgages, says Richard Veitz, executive vice president and chief community banking officer.

"The reason we went with MoneyLine..rather than have our branch personnel just tell someone to go home and get on the Internet, or go home and dial this 1-800 number, was that we wanted our representatives in the bank to be involved in the process," Veitz says. "There is very little work that the people in the branch have to do, but at least they are aware of where things are at in the cycle, and they are involved."

Prior to working with MoneyLine, Nevada State Bank was processing just a few loans. However, while using MoneyLine's services between January and July of this year, the bank processed 196 loans with a total of $30 million funded for that period. Martin says the outcome has been successful and has brought the bank even closer to its competitors in the mortgage market.

"If we did not make this change, we would not have had a competitive product to that offered by our two biggest competitors, which are Wells Fargo and Bank of America," says Martin. "It brings people to the bank if they weren't here already. We just needed that to compete against Wells and BofA."

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Fast Facts

INSTITUTION: Nevada State Bank, (Las Vegas)

ASSETS: $2.8 billion

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: Increase volume to become more competitive in the mortgage and lending market.

SOLUTION: Outsourced lending service from MoneyLine (Irvine, Calif.) that handles mortgage application inquiries and processing.

Key Quote: "If we did not make this change, we would not have had a competitive product." - Bill Martin, Chairman, CEO & President, Nevada State Bank