The hosted loan software is scheduled to go live at Citizens Bank early in the third quarter, and is expected to bring increased underwriting consistency and productivity to the institution's consumer lending operations.

Francine Stucky, vice president and loan servicing manager at Citizens Bank of Florida, says the software also will help the bank enhance risk management and regulatory compliance efforts.

"Our previous system was not up to par, and required us to re-enter loan application data multiple times during the underwriting and decisioning process," said Stucky. "We needed a solution that would make our consumer lending process more efficient, and AppMark was the answer. Now, we can pull credit scores, NADA details and flood information using a single, user-friendly interface, saving us lots of time and headaches."

Citizens Bank of Florida is a five-branch institution with more than $213 million in assets. Founded in 1946 by local agricultural business owners, the bank has been recognized numerous times for its customer service, including the Orlando Business Journal's award for best community bank.

AppMark is hosted and delivered through Cypress' software-as-a-service (SaaS) network, so the need for additional hardware, software and IT staff to run and maintain the application was eliminated, further reducing Citizens Bank of Florida's rollout costs.

"AppMark satisfies an unmet need among community banks for affordable consumer loan software, and provides the most robust solution available for banks with less than $250 million in assets," said Stephen G. Sargent, president and chief executive officer at Cypress Software Systems. "We're excited to have Citizens Bank of Florida on board, and AppMark will ensure increased risk management, enhanced regulatory compliance and quick, automated loan decisions."

AppMark automates all aspects of the loan origination process from data entry to underwriting to decisioning. The software delivers the same look and feel of Cypress' flagship consumer lending solution, Mark IV, but is modified to include the features and functions that are most required by smaller community banks.

Clients like Citizens Bank access AppMark through remote login, which provides a more enhanced interface compared to HTML-coded, browser-based applications. Cypress manages both AppMark and its clients' customer database information through an SAS70-certified AT&T Internet data center (IDC) in Dallas.