Fiserv Exec Jumps Ship to Develop Products at Formation Technologies

Tired of mergers and acquisitions, Robin H. Smith has left Fiserv Inc. to become the new president and chief executive officer at Formation Technologies Inc., a compliance company in Denver.

Mr. Smith had been with the Orlando-based data processing company since 1991. Most recently, he was Fiserv's senior vice president of the Comprehensive Banking System division, promoting the retail banking data processing system that he helped develop 16 years ago.

That system was created in 1979 by Smith, Weiss & Delker, where Mr. Smith worked from 1984 to 1987, though he is not the Smith in the company's name. Citicorp bought Smith Weiss in 1987 and, in turn, sold it to Fiserv in 1991.

In an interview, Mr. Smith said he left Fiserv because he wants to focus again on creating new products.

"The primary difference that drew me to Formation was that their expansion was going to be on the product development side," Mr. Smith said. "The growth was going to be through the product rather than acquisition related."

One of his first projects at Formation will be to make Formation products compatible with Microsoft's Windows software. Right now, the company's products operate on IBM OS/2 software.

Mr. Smith also will be working with Geopublisher, a new software product that helps banks collect data needed to comply with the Community Reinvestment and Home Mortgage Disclosure acts.

Mr. Smith said he will also push Formation's Pedestal series, a PC-based integrated loan origination and platform automation system. Pedestal also organizes data to aid in compliance efforts and can be customized to fit the user's current computer systems.

While working with Fiserv, Mr. Smith helped introduce a Windows-based cash management system used by domestic and international financial institutions.

Robert R. Woodson, chairman, CEO, and president of John H. Harland Co., which owns Formation, said Mr. Smith's experience producing products from the ground up made him an attractive candidate for the job.

"Smith is a dynamic leader who clearly understands financial technology and its marketplace," Mr. Woodson said. "His expertise and vision will enable the company to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the rapidly changing financial industry."

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