Georgian Bank’s Intelligent Touch Moves it Closer to Clients
- Monday, December 1, 2008, 0:53
- Banking
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Since its founding in 2001, Georgian Bank has become one of the fastest-growing banks with more than $2 billion in assets.
According to Danny W. Jett, executive vice president of the bank, this has a lot to do with the institution’s high-touch customer service. “Our objective is to be a different and better banking alternative for our market and to provide a relationship banking alternative that exceeds anything currently available for businesses, as well as entrepreneurs, while meeting all of their banking needs,” says the executive VP.
To help meet its evolving customer requirements, Georgian Bank selected Harland Financial Solutions’ Microsoft Windows-based core processing solution, the Phoenix™ System.
The Phoenix System’s focus on relationship banking was a huge draw for the bank, according to Jett. “In order for our Relationship Managers to provide a truly different and better banking alternative with our target high-touch service, we must have easy access to complete customer relationship information,” he says. “We believe the Phoenix System provides the architecture to help us accomplish that objective.”
To this end, Georgian Bank sought a partner rather than a vendor. “We know that technology costs are one of the most significant items in the non-interest expense schedule and in order to get the greatest return on that investment, it requires a partner relationship,” notes Jett. “We felt that the potential for developing that partnership exists with Harland Financial Solutions,” he says.
The Phoenix System’s XML-based middleware engine provides the bank with Web services that integrate information from several different solutions, both internally and externally. “This allows us to offer real-time integration between all of our data sources rather than using the old methodologies, such as file flinging,” says Marc McGrath, IT manager and information security officer at Georgian Bank.
Getting rapid access to information is also critical for a high-touch culture. Consequently, the bank is in the initial stages of rolling out the Phoenix Report Model for Microsoft Reporting Services, a reporting and analytics solution that makes it easier for non-technical staff to build reports. Ultimately, the use of Report Model will allow Georgian Bank’s users to create result sets that are accurate, without intricate knowledge of the data source itself, according to McGrath. “This creates an environment that better utilizes the specialized knowledge in our IT group for the complex management reporting needs of the organization and gives our users a sense of empowerment,” he says.
Beyond Phoenix Report Model, Microsoft’s Reporting Services helps the bank in its efforts to get a complete picture of its relationship with each customer, one of the key business challenges facing financial services institutions today.
“Georgian Bank has taken an active stance on creating a complete relationship picture to ensure we are providing the appropriate solutions with top-notch customer service to all of our customers,” says McGrath. “The use of Reporting Services has been the key in creating the all-encompassing picture every organization so desperately desires. Now that we have created the overall picture in 2008, it will continue to evolve and we will look to drill into the information to better understand the finer points of our customer relationships.”
The bank also uses Microsoft Reporting Services to aggregate, manipulate and provide all the necessary data for its Risk Management and Compliance groups.
“The use of Reporting Services is a significant change over the tools we used in the past, and it allows us to mitigate associated business risks, as well as ensure compliance with many of the regulations of which we are bound,” notes McGrath. “This tool, combined with outstanding personnel, is one of the many reasons Georgian Bank has not been significantly impacted by the current state of the economy.”
Meanwhile, Georgian Bank has already started using its online presence to provide a feature-rich solution to all of its customers – both retail and commercial. “The changes made during 2008 have been significant and are positioning our institution to continue providing top-notch service as well as remain in-line with the expectations of our increasingly Web savvy customers,” says McGrath.
