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Automated Financial Systems (AFS) announced Release 8.3 of its flagship loan accounting and servicing product, AFS Level III, to facilitate compliance with Basel II, Sarbanes-Oxley, the U.S. Patriot Act, FASB, OTS, Federal Reserve and new reporting requirements for the IRS and SBA. The new release is a first response to regulatory changes that the company expects to become increasingly rapid, and it signals AFS' commitment to upgrading systems' capabilities at a pace consistent with market dynamics.
Release 8.3 enhances AFS Level III, the platform already in use at 70 percent of the top 30 U.S. banks. In addition to operating efficiencies to reduce internal costs, Release 8.3 addresses operational risk by automating processes that had previously been manual; thereby reducing errors and increasing data integrity. From a revenue perspective, this release provides additional opportunities to process fees and apply payments automatically to certain lending products that differentiate clients' product delivery and fee generation capabilities. Release 8.3 is operational at SunTrust Bank (Atlanta) and National Commerce Financial Corporation (Memphis, Tenn.).
"AFS has committed substantial effort to plan proactively not only for directives that have been announced but also for changes likely to occur as a result of new regulation and accounting standards," said John Shain, president of AFS. "This responsiveness to market demands affords banks critical time-to-market advantages and an integrated loan accounting delivery compliant with today's highly dynamic regulatory, legal and accounting environments."
Release 8.3 of the AFS loan accounting system uses a single, integrated lending platform enterprise-wide to process any type of loan--from a consumer installment loan to a complex, syndicated credit--enabling users to leverage investments in core processing and eliminate the costs of supporting multiple lending systems. Having a system that integrates the entire lending process from origination through payoff, AFS allows clients to manage workflow, access information to identify policy exceptions, manage operational and credit risk and drive sustainable revenue.
Compliance support delivered in Release 8.3 includes additional identification fields to enable clients to meet "Know Your Customer" mandates; FASB 91 Straight-Line Amortization capability; impaired asset tracking and reporting to comply with FASB 114/118; revisions to comply with new IRS reporting formats; automated SBA 1502 reporting and additional data fields to comply with SBA reporting requirements; additional Fed class codes for regulatory reporting; added OTS reporting; the addition of information required for credit bureau reporting; and the ability to house additional risk ratings, collateral information, credit scores, and borrower data for Basel II compliance.