Republic Wins 'Paper' Independence

Increasing the ability to handle the volume of loan applications, while eliminating the inconvenience of paper-processed loans, were the primary goals of Republic Bank and Trust Co. when the bank decided to install Fiserv Lending Solutions' easyLENDER loan origination software last year .

Republic Bank & Trust Co., (Louisville, Ky.), with $1.9 billion in assets, has been able to handle three times its previous volume after it added Fiserv Lending Solutions' (Lake Mary, Fla.) software to its loan application procedures, says the bank's executive vice president and chief lending officer, David Vest.

Reducing Manual Intervention

"We were still taking a number of our applications by hand, by paper applications and transporting these hard files from the individual banking centers to the centralized environment for processing," says Vest. "We were losing a lot of time. Just the cost and time of shipping files" was excessive. "We were looking for something that reduces that turnaround time dramatically and increases our competitive advantage."

Vest and others involved in the decision-making process thought the change in the bank's business routine for processing loans would meet resistance with some loan officers. Instead, Vest says, the employees accepted the program and productivity of the bank's loan staff has doubled with the new program.

"We really felt we were going to have some challenges," says Vest. "They embraced the new system and it increased their productivity immensely because it cut down...the time it took to take applications. They can spend more time meeting with new customers and less time shuffling paper."

The bank chose easyLENDER because of the program's capability of offering one solution for all of the bank's loan processing needs, says Shannon Reid, Republic Bank and Trust's senior vice president and director of loan administration.

"We chose easyLENDER because of the ease of use...for our loan officers," says Reid. "We trained loan officers in a month and a half. Each officer really was very pleased and picked up the system very easily. So the ease of use was definitely one of the key features that we sought during the selection criteria."

The program was implemented last year and is a Microsoft (Redmond, Wash.) Windows-based software package that is customizable for multi-channel lenders, such as Republic Bank. Republic processes mortgage, consumer and commercial loans.

The combination of easyLENDER Mortgage and easyLENDER Consumer/Commercial software allows Republic Bank and Trust's loan officers to track loans, gain access to loan status information and has reduced the flow of calls and e-mails from loan officers-a benefit that has significantly increased the number of loan applications that the bank can handle. Loan processors using the program can switch back and forth between the two systems.

Overall, Republic Bank is satisfied with the results that easyLENDER has provided. The bank's loan origination volume has grown from $350 million in 2000 to more than $1.2 billion in 2002.

"Without making this change we would have clearly not been able to accommodate the volume of loans as efficiently as we did," says Reid. "Our volumes of loan growth have probably tripled in the last three years. We have also improved the operational efficiencies both in the front office and the back office areas." [email protected]

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Fast Facts

INSTITUTION: Republic Bank & Trust Company, (Louisville, Ky.)

ASSETS: $1.9 billion

BUSINESS CHALLENGE: Increase capacity of loan origination technology and processes to handle wave of new business.

SOLUTION: Fiserv Lending Solutions' (Lake Mary, Fla.) easyLENDER loan origination software

KEY QUOTE: "We chose easyLENDER because of the ease of use...for our loan officers." -Shannon Reid, Senior Vice President And Director Of Loan Administration, Republic Bank & Trust