"Simply installing technology like our Mark IV and BizMark applications will add instant speed and consistency to a financial institution's lending process. However, further analysis and adjustments to the organization's broader lending and technology strategies can help optimize an institution's loan operation and maximize their technology investment," said Stephen G. Sargent, president and CEO of Cypress. "We formed the Cypress Professional Services Division to help our clientele develop and achieve goals for lending efficiency, which ultimately translates to higher customer service and lower costs."

The Cypress Professional Services Division will provide five initial service products to assist financial institutions, and will introduce additional offerings in the coming months. The preliminary services include:

• Strategic Configuration Assessment (SCA) - helps institutions configure their Cypress products to accurately reflect the institution's credit policy, lending workflow, products, notification processes, pricing strategy, decisioning strategy and other business needs.
• Technology Assessment (TA) - identifies opportunities to improve availability, scalability, performance, configuration, management and upgrades within an institution's information technology environment.
• Process Improvement Gap Analysis - assesses an organization's credit origination environment and makes technology procurement recommendations that enable enhanced business practices.
• Decision Process Optimization Service (DPO) - analyzes an organization's lending portfolio and develops a clear picture of existing decisioning practices in the organization's consumer and small business lending operations. CPS then applies industry best practices to the decision process, thus prompting portfolio growth without increasing staff.
• Integration and Customization - provides systems integration, channel integration and other customization projects for Cypress' loan decisioning platforms. CPS assists with business requirements definitions, specifications documentation, project management, delivery and implementation of the solutions.