After a two-year development effort, Harland Financial Solutions today unveiled Phoenix Extended Financial Enterprise (PhoenixEFE), an integrated enterprise software platform for U.S. banks, savings institutions and credit unions.
PhoenixEFE brings together the company's real-time core processing solution, formerly known as the PhoenixTM System, with its specialized solutions for risk management, lending and compliance, business intelligence and marketing, branch automation, self service, enterprise content management, payments and financial accounting.
"Today, banks and credit unions are urgently looking for substantial performance improvements - not just cost cuts, but to really unify and optimize their entire enterprise," said Raju Shivdasani, president of Harland Financial Solutions. "They want to synthesize their people and processes, while extending more services to their customers and members. We created PhoenixEFE in response to these needs."
Integration Milestone for Banks
For banks, PhoenixEFE is the culmination of enterprise integration enhancements that Harland Financial Solutions has been offering its clients for years.
"Integration is a concept that everyone in the industry talks about," said Shivdasani. "For us, it is more than just a technology strategy. It is a business commitment. With PhoenixEFE, we have made a significant commitment to bring together our market-leading solutions because that is what our clients need in order to streamline their operations," says Shivdasani.
Expanded Commitment to the Credit Union Market
For credit unions, PhoenixEFE expands Harland Financial Solutions' credit union solution portfolio, joining the company's UltraData® Enterprise solution, which currently serves hundreds of traditional, retail-focused credit unions nationwide.
PhoenixEFE is specifically designed for credit unions with a significant focus on business services, including complex commercial lending products and loan participations.
"More than 45 percent of credit unions in the U.S. today are looking to offer increasingly complex products and services," said Shivdasani. "PhoenixEFE gives those credit unions a powerful enterprise solution with a commercial banking pedigree. At the same time, it offers all the unique credit union capabilities that drive a superior member experience."
"For the 55 percent of traditional, retail-focused credit unions, UltraData Enterprise is a proven, powerful solution. Either way, today's announcement reinforces our company's expanding commitment to the credit union movement with solutions that match either strategy," Shivdasani said.
Ready for Credit Unions and Banks Today
Harland Financial Solutions also announced that two financial institutions went live on PhoenixEFE in August. In addition, all of Harland Financial Solutions' clients currently using the Phoenix System have begun the process of upgrading to PhoenixEFE, which is expected to be complete by November 2009 in a phased approach.
Consumers Credit Union, based in Kalamazoo, Mich., was the first credit union to implement PhoenixEFE. One of the fastest growing credit unions in the United States, Consumers Credit Union is eager to stay competitive by increasing loan originations and significantly expanding its commercial services.
"We selected PhoenixEFE because it aligns with our business model - it enables us to expand our reach into the commercial market, to increase efficiencies and to deliver the type of product portfolio that will take us into the future - all while providing that single relationship view that is critical to delivering an exceptional member experience," said Kit Snyder, CEO of Consumers Credit Union.
"We see great opportunities in the personal and commercial lending areas, and in the deposit areas," continued Snyder. "Things we weren't able to offer before are now possible, which will continue to propel our institution's growth. We are pleased with what we see and excited about where it can take us in the future."
Rainier Pacific Bank, a $900 million-asset bank based in Tacoma, Wash., became the first bank to implement PhoenixEFE.
"We chose PhoenixEFE as the platform best able to provide the customer service capabilities, robust business banking functionality and operational efficiencies we will use to deliver on our promise to be the choice for our customers," said John Hall, President and CEO of Rainier Pacific Bank. "Since conversion, PhoenixEFE has performed as expected, response times have been good and the system itself is stable, reliable and secure. We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Harland Financial Solutions as they continue to evolve their vision of the extended financial enterprise, and we leverage that vision to continuously deliver improved service and valuable financial solutions to our customers."
Enterprise Innovation
PhoenixEFE's scope and integrated design make it easier for institutions to focus on the performance and automation of their key business processes. The solution unifies the origination, administration and underwriting, servicing and debt collection stages of an institution's enterprise-wide lending process. Every type of lending is supported, from complex commercial lending to mortgage and consumer lending - including participations and open-ended lending.
PhoenixEFE also helps institutions drive deposit growth by offering streamlined deposit origination and retention capabilities, along with sophisticated cash management, sweep and account analysis features.
PhoenixEFE's technical architecture is designed to save institutions time and money. Its account servicing and transaction processing engine, PhoenixEFE Core, runs on Microsoft® Windows Server and industry-standard, low-cost hardware. The PhoenixEFE application platform is deeply integrated by a web services transaction gateway that uses XML and web services to share information for queries, updates, transaction processing - across the enterprise.