Open Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ:OPEN), a provider of integrated enabling technologies for financial institutions and OmniAmerican® Credit Union, a state chartered, community-based credit union with assets under management approaching $1.5 billion, announced the successful implementation of Open Solutions' technology platform to handle the institution's retail transactions, consumer loan servicing and integration strategy for its more than 241,000 members worldwide.
"The OmniAmerican evaluation and executive teams unanimously concurred that the time had come to completely revamp credit union systems, for the benefit of our membership," said Larry Duckworth, president and CEO of OmniAmerican. "With the exceptional Open Solutions system in place, OmniAmerican is poised to offer the membership a number of leading-edge products and services through its fully-installed open technology platform."
In an effort to aggressively grow the credit union's lending and deposit portfolios, OmniAmerican, one of the nation's largest credit unions, converted 15 technology platforms and applications during the course of one weekend. OmniAmerican's management identified technology as the way to build better processes and make delivery channels more robust.
In addition to moving to the Open Solutions core data processing platform, the credit union successfully installed Open Solutions' complementary products including commercial loan management, Internet banking, natural voice response, real-time ATM processing and safe deposit box solutions; plus, integrations with a new or enhanced general ledger system, credit card processor and Internet bill pay solutions. OmniAmerican's ambitious undertaking required key changes in virtually all its employee and member-interfacing technology applications.
"We took every precaution to ensure a successful conversion, which included multiple hardware stress tests, two mock implementations and extensive data analysis," said Jim Evans, Conversion Project manager and senior vice president of Information Technology (IT) and CIO at OmniAmerican.
"During conversion week we had very few significant issues - quite a testament to the people and the conversion process; our joint teams worked incredibly well together. Due to the number of technologies replaced, this was one of the largest conversions our industry has ever seen. Solidarity and stellar technologies made it arguably one of the smoothest, as well."
"OmniAmerican wanted a system that was easy for the front line staff to use and provided comprehensive sales and sales management tools with a powerful management reporting component," Duckworth said. "Additional features of Open Solutions' relational core data processing system included online signature and picture verification of members; an extensive deposit and lending system that would significantly improve the functionality and management of the lending process; business functionality; fully integrated optical storage for reports and forms; ATM and E-Services enhancements; and the power to customise the system to create new products and update older ones."
"We are seeing an increasing demand for member business services," Evans said. "With our old technology, we were unable to meet that demand effectively. Open Solutions provided a feature-rich solution that allows us to compete in the commercial market. Personnel and technology are the foundation of being able to offer business products and services. We now have the tools our staff needs to better meet our members' business needs."
"OmniAmerican set the bar incredibly high for what they wanted to accomplish in recreating the entire technology infrastructure," said Gary Daniel, senior vice president and general manager of Open Solutions' Credit Union Group. "Together, our teams replaced the 15-year incumbent, legacy-based core solution, while integrating and replacing 15 other critical technology applications. The cornerstone of our conversion strategy was to make the transition happen efficiently, effectively and with minimal disruption to its large member base. I am happy to say we did that successfully. That is the benefit of striving to perfect a relational technology offering and complementary delivery strategies for more than a decade. We are OmniAmerican's partner now and into the future."
According to Open Solutions' product managers, the company's technology suite was architecturally designed to be an open environment application, creating the flexibility necessary for running an agile, service-oriented institution. The product suite delivers real-time core data processing, account creation flexibility and embedded business intelligence capabilities to offer efficiencies for both the front and back offices.
Open Solutions Chairman and CEO Louis Hernandez, Jr. said, "I am proud of what we have accomplished with our partners at OmniAmerican. The creativity of this joint team in their effort to make this conversion seamless is case history worthy. That is Open Solutions' ultimate goal for all of our implementations. Our commitment to OmniAmerican and the entire credit union industry is to continually leverage our growing presence in this industry and to create focused solutions that meet the needs of credit unions and members, alike."