State Bank of Long Island
improved customer services, saved significant office space
and administrative hours, and is better able to meet their
Sarbanes-Oxley compliance requirements and other compliance
regulations regarding electronic handling of commercial,
business, and municipal credit load files after implementing
a Fortis Document
Management Solution.
State Bank of Long Island is one of the largest
independent commercial banks on Long Island with assets exceeding
$1.5 billion. The bank specializes in meeting the financial
needs of the commercial, small business, municipal and consumer
markets.
Commercial loan credit files contain
massive amounts of information that is constantly being
updated. Since banking
is a very highly regulated industry, a bank’s credit
files are regularly reviewed by state and federal examiners
and internal and external auditors.
“During these exams the reviewers routinely remove
documents from our credit files and often misfile the items
when placing them back in place,” said Bob Nicols,
Senior Vice President. “Ironically, we may receive
criticism from one examining group relating to ‘missing’ file
items after the file has been returned from another examining
group. Such criticism following our 2004 exam was the primary
impetus for us to begin exploring document management options.”
Disaster recovery was another reason that the bank sought
a document management solution. While it wasn't the initial
need they had it mind, it quickly became apparent to Nicols
that |
|
Industry:
Banking
Organization:
State Bank of Long Island
Location:
16 branch locations throughout Nassau, Suffolk and Queens
Counties, New York
Financial picture:
Assets exceeding $1.5 billion
Westbrook Partner:
InfiNet Business Systems
Westbrook solutions:
Fortis
PowerWeb
| Business
metrics achieved by Fortis: |
| • |
Savings
of approximately $35,000 per year in office space
costs and hundreds of hours of staff time previously
spent filing and retrieving |
| • |
Elimination
of hard copy and shadow files |
| • |
Space
for four or five more work stations |
| • |
Lenders
and credit analysts can access files securely from
their headquarters desktop PC’s as well as
in remote lending locations with PowerWeb |
| • |
Help
with achieving Sarbanes-Oxley controls testing
and compliance |
| • |
Disaster
recovery planning |
| • |
Scanning
of upwards of 10,000 credit documents (100,000
pages) since September 2005 |
|
|
imaging their credit files
would be a huge benefit if their headquarters location was
ever destroyed.
 Fortis
has also helped with our Sarbanes-Oxley compliance
requirements. Our entire archival process has
been made simpler 
|
State
Bank of Long Island also had unique challenges as a
commercial bank. “Other banks we knew of that
were imaging their credit files were focused on consumer
loans and credit card accounts, which are very small
transaction-based processes compared to commercial
lending. Those types of files don’t need to be
continually accessed and updated like ours. Our files
remain active all of the time,” Nicols added.
Westbrook Partner InfiNet Business
Systems assessed the |
bank’s challenges
and customized Fortis
document management software and PowerWeb -
web access to documents - to create a backfile system
designed from the end user’s
perspective. “Brian Banet and Mike Maser of InfiNet
spent weeks fully customizing Fortis for our specific
needs. They created tabs in the system just like our
hard copy folders and worked relentlessly on building
the best system for us,” said Gerry Harden, Vice
President. “We feel like we’re much farther
along with Fortis than we originally anticipated due
to InfiNet’s dedication to our success.” |
Additionally,
InfiNet set up a time for Nicols and Harden to meet with
NewAlliance Bank in New Haven, CT, another Fortis customer. “InfiNet
continually went above and beyond for us, and it was their
passion and the customer-oriented feel we got from Westbrook
that helped us make the decision. We looked at Documentum
as well but felt that Westbrook was a better fit for a
mid-sized company like us and we knew we’d have a
closer relationship with both Westbrook and InfiNet as
a result,” Harden continued.
Nicols and Harden also gained valuable information on Fortis
and networked with other industry peers like Charter Bank
at the Westbrook customer conference in May. Now that they
are fully implemented, they have scanned upwards of 10,000
credit documents totaling approximately 100,000 pages since
September 2005.
“Our lenders and credit analysts can now access files
securely both at our headquarters location and in our remote
lending sites with PowerWeb. This ability to access the full
credit file from any desktop PC in our organization will
eliminate the need for lenders to maintain ‘shadow
files’ for their accounts. Fortis has also helped with
our Sarbanes-Oxley compliance requirements as we can now
quickly locate documents needed as part of controls testing.
Our entire archival process has been made simpler which is
key, considering we must keep certain credit file information
for up to seven years,” Nicols said.
Once all credit files are scanned into Fortis, Nicols expects
to eliminate hard copy files which will enable them to convert
the file storage room into four or five more work stations
for lending and support staff. The bank expects to save $35,000
per year in office space costs and hundreds of hours of staff
time previously spent filing and retrieving. Appraisal and
environmental reports are the next documents to be scanned,
and following the success of the commercial lending department,
the bank envisions Fortis applications for the human resources
and finance departments. |
