2012

When Sherri Hayes came to NBC Oklahoma as the senior vice president of loan administration in 2008, she had a big job ahead of her. Originally, this Oklahoma-based bank had two charters: the Tulsa charter, which included five rural branches and one urban branch, and the Oklahoma City charter, then with three locations in more urban settings. But, all of this was about to change.

“NBC Oklahoma was merging charters and wanted to centralize operations. Instead of loan documents originating at the various branches, everything for the nine locations was going to be prepared at our main, Oklahoma City headquarters,” Hayes said. “And, we had to do it all without falling short on response time or customer service.”

When Hayes looked at the existing loan system, she had her concerns. “The bank was using a solution that was basically a collection of electronic, autofill forms. Because it wasn’t a dynamic system, it had limitations. Each ‘box’ had only a predetermined amount of space. That meant if you had 15 borrowers, you were sunk. The form didn’t morph into what you needed; you had to conform to it,” Hayes explained.

A few months later, the bank’s original loan system provider was sold. The product NBC Oklahoma was using for loan origination was going away; current customers were going to be transitioned to a different, albeit more advanced, product. “I took that as our opportunity to look around and get what we really needed to make the centralization effort succeed,” Hayes said. “I had used LaserPro® at another bank and knew its capabilities. But, I wanted to be fair, so we looked at both systems side-by-side, so we were confident that we were making the right choice.”

The clear winner was LaserPro from Harland Financial Solutions. “The other system looked rudimentary compared to LaserPro. It wasn’t formatted well; it didn’t fit with the professional image that we want to project to our customers,” Hayes said. “Plus, LaserPro is extremely easy to use. It guides you through each input screen. On the administrative side, it’s intuitive, as well. You just follow the drop-down menus.”

LaserPro gives Hayes’ staff the flexibility to add the information they need on each loan document – and keep it all on one form. “LaserPro enables you to type as much as you need to, and the input area continues to expand to accommodate what you type. That means you have the ability to serve more complicated borrowers – like corporations owned by corporations owned by trusts,” Hayes said. “With LaserPro, we have options and the ability to consolidate all of the data into one form. With the other system, that took multiple forms. We had to edit and fix anything that didn’t carry over. That consumed a lot of time and left us with a huge margin of error. LaserPro eliminates all of those headaches.”

Hayes can also use LaserPro to set standard products for loans. “After you set a standard product, the system only allows you to select the type of collateral that applies to that product. That not only makes us more efficient, but again, it reduces the margin of error,” she explained.

The Provisions feature enables Hayes’ team to insert a paragraph or something unique into the actual loan document. “If we want our commercial loan customers to provide general liability insurance, as well as property insurance, we can add a paragraph to that effect. I can set the system to include this paragraph on one loan, a few special loans or all loans – and it’s done,” she said.

LawyerPro®, an additional module, was also part of the solution mix. “With LawyerPro, we can easily move a form document to a Microsoft® Word® document and then send it to the attorneys to review. We can then take their changes and flow it back into the original loan,” Hayes said. “We are having our customer sign a clean, professional looking document, not something that has a lot of cross-outs and initials.”

Although all of these attributes are great, the real test of the LaserPro value is how it fared in a centralized loan processing environment. The bank implemented LaserPro in November 2008 and did a rolling change to centralization. The result? Nothing short of outstanding success.
                                                                                           
“I came on board to centralize nine locations. When I came to the bank, there were three loan administrators and one supervisor that handled only Oklahoma City’s three branches. And, it’s important to note that they didn’t actually create loan documents, they just looked at them,” Hayes said. “I kept the three administrators and hired one more person. Today, four people prepare all the loan documents for our eight branches. It’s the combination of LaserPro and a highly-competent staff that makes it all happen.”

Even with the centralization, loan response time hasn’t missed a beat. Car loans, which can be produced in 15 minutes with LaserPro, are guaranteed in one-half hour. Real estate loans are returned in 24 hours, with the bulk of that time being spent on background checks, not actual loan creation. And this speed has done nothing to increase the error rate. LaserPro makes sure of that.

“When you create a loan, an internal LaserPro checklist tells you if you did something wrong – like break a compliance rule. It can issue an advisory warning or a critical warning that says the loan was, for whatever reason, not done correctly. That helps us catch errors in creation, not after the fact. So, our error rate is extremely low,” Hayes said.

One year into a massive undertaking, Hayes is certain that LaserPro was the right choice for NBC Oklahoma – and the solution continues to prove itself every day. “LaserPro is dependable – you don’t have to worry about system failure or the database being corrupt. It’s easy-to-use. And, Harland Financial Solutions offers outstanding, quick, professional customer service,” she said. “I’m impressed with the way Harland Financial Solutions stays current with compliance issues. They are ahead of the changes and are ready with new releases before new regulations go into effect, so these new laws have minimum impact on their customers.”

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