WRQ, Inc. today announced that Global Home Loans, Ltd., a subsidiary of Countrywide Financial Corporation (NYSE: CFC) and Barclays Bank/The Woolwich, is harnessing the power of WRQ(R) host access and legacy integration solutions to speed time to market of its outsourcing services and joint ventures.
Using WRQ Verastream(R) software, Global Home Loans created web services from legacy applications that cut customer loan processing times from two years to three months. Also, by combining these web services into a new web-based application, Global Home Loans has reduced call center wait times by streamlining agent access to core customer information.
A long-time WRQ Reflection(R) customer, Global Home Loans standardized on WRQ Verastream after reviewing productivity gains powered by the solution at its affiliate, Balboa Insurance Group, a Countrywide Financial Corporation insurance subsidiary. Global Home Loans used Verastream to quickly integrate disparate systems between it and UK-based Barclays Bank, which enabled them to speed the benefits of this joint venture.
"With WRQ as our partner, we have dramatically transformed our business model, and we are seeing a substantial return on investment," said Tommy Mason, chief information officer and executive vice president of Global Home Loans. "The majority of our customers, including our joint venture with Barclays Bank, have multiple legacy systems that must be integrated first before we can see any return on investment. Standardizing on WRQ Verastream and Reflection has enabled us to maximize development times, improving ROI and time to market."
For Countrywide, maintaining a global competitive edge in the financial services market through its Global Home Loans subsidiary was contingent on its ability to provide web-enabled services that reduce operational costs while speeding the administration of mortgage applications.
"Global Home Loans' executives understand that when it comes to maximizing their joint venture investments, it is critical to integrate diverse legacy systems quickly," said Randy Robinson, vice president of products at WRQ. "The ability to reuse and adapt legacy functionality not only saves time and money, but ensures that time-tested business processes and logic can be deployed in new initiatives in a matter of months."
Using Verastream, Global Home Loans created a web service front-end that makes home mortgage loan operations available to customers in months instead of years. WRQ software's service-oriented approach enables developers to rapidly create value-added services incrementally, without disrupting business operations. For example, call center agents and users get reliable direct access to the host information they need from a single web interface, without needing to understand the overall work flow of the complete application.
"Every step of the way, WRQ provided significant value and stellar support for our complex demands, helping us to build our own in-house competency system for long-term maintenance," Mason said.
"Verastream delivers loan and financial service information to customers in seconds by providing call center operators with a 360-degree view of its customer data. By effectively modernizing our global IT operations, WRQ solutions are now a part of Global Home Loans' strategic IT vision," Mason continued.