The Overview
- Customer: Midsize Regional Bank
- Industry: Financial
- Challenge: Antiquated Mainframe Notification System
- Solution: New Loan Document Tracking System
- Outcomes: Decreased infrastructure spending, improved sales & operations user experience
The Summary
A midsize regional banking client partnered with Apex to modernize and rethink their commercial loan servicing document tracking process. Apex employed Envisioning for strategy, and built a new application using the Low Code Apex Designer to replace the old mainframe. The new application was such a success that the client brought Apex back to integrate consumer loans into the system.
The Customer
A midsize regional bank engaged Apex with a focus on the bank’s commercial loan services. The bank’s loan processes provide their customers with the funds they need to make necessary financing accessible and stress free.
When loans originate, many actions happen behind the scenes.
Loan Officers need to ensure new loans get all the required paperwork in the correct time frame to satisfy risk mitigation or regulatory requirements. The Loan Operations Team reviews the documents provided, storing them appropriately and issuing reminders for recurring documents (such as insurance certificates) that may need to be renewed every year.
In a nutshell, the loan documentation follows this process:
- New loan customer provides document types needed for the loan in question
- Loan Officers verify that new loans have required documentation complete and submitted within the allocated time
- Loan Operations Team reviews and stores submitted documentation, and sends reminders for any recurring documents
The Challenge
For years, the client used a mainframe-based notification system. The mainframe-based notification system tracked trailing documents associated with commercial loans.
This system to track documentation is integral to the loan process. As new loans originate, items such as insurance certificates, collateral documents and ownership documents need to be collected and stored by the bank.
The types of documents required by a loan customer depend on the type and size of the loan, along with the associated risk. The various document types have differing grace periods for collection.
The mainframe needed to be replaced with an easier to use, more innovative and dynamic application.
The client engaged Apex to Envision, build, and implement a solution to eliminate this antiquated mainframe system.
The Apex Action
Apex kicked off the project with Envisioning. The Envisioning project got down to the core of the existing mainframe system and the stakeholders involved. Envisioneers explored the necessities of loan servicing and what the bank needed from a new system. Envisioneers built a roadmap to success for the bank to maximize efficiency and optimize the loan service process.
Apex led the development of the production solution based on the prototypes created during Envisioning. Apex built the solution using Apex Designer, a low code tool for building powerful, modern web applications that run on an open source stack.
Apex demonstrated the prototype multiple times to the Operations Team. The Operations Team identified several other usability improvements that could be incorporated in the application. The team wrote a complete backlog of user stories to cover all of the functionality needs of the various stakeholders.
During the course of the development iterations, Apex created the capabilities for generating document reminders. These reminders are for new loans created in the new commercial loan servicing package.
The Solution
The new Loan Document Tracking System Envisioned by the team provided a simplified and modernized user experience for tracking the status of thousands of documents.
Key features of the new Loan Document Tracking System:
- Dashboards for main user roles
- Ability to generate document reminders
- User interfaces for opening, closing, review, and rejecting reminders
- Single sign-on
- Active Directory based user roles
- Simplified and modernized user experience
- Simple tabular user interface for generating and maintaining document reminders
The Results
Apex consultants trained one of the bank's developers in the use of the Apex Designer tool, and they were able to own the maintenance of the application.
Later, the bank decided to merge commercial and consumer loan servicing platforms and engaged Apex to help extend the capabilities of the document tracking system.
Apex’s new application achieved the following benefits for the bank:
- Decreased infrastructure spending
- Loan servicing and document tracking no longer on mainframe
- Improved user experience for operations and sales teams
- Used daily by over 1000 bank employees
- Meets all regulatory requirements (e.g. SOX) for decision and exception logging
Apex combined Envisioning and Apex Designer to build a powerful but simple application to optimize the banking client’s Document Notification system.
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