SAINT PAUL, Minn.-City & County CU came late to the paperless revolution but seems to have quickly made up for lost time, using 40% less paper over the past year.
Stuck in a vendor's item processing contract until 2010, City & County here had to wait until last year to take full advantage of Check 21 technology, which helps reduce paper, said Patrick Pierce, president and CEO at the $360-million CU.
"Check 21 was the initial call for us to go paperless, but then we began noticing other efficiencies," explained Pierce. "It made sense to deploy a range of paperless technology all at once in order to make the most of our members' money."
Last year's Check 21 rollout included remote deposit capture, image capture at the teller and electronic receipts, all through technology provided by Vista, Calif.-based Bluepoint Solutions. Mobile deposit is coming to the CU next quarter, Pierce added.
City & County didn't stop with Check 21 technology, implementing Bluepoint's electronic content management system to index and access loans, account statements, membership cards, teller receipts, transaction data-"everything we used to keep in a paper folder for the member," Pierce said.
The result is that City & County cut back on 4,000 pages of paper in one year, down to 61,000 pages, said Erin Coleman, vice president, Bluepoint Solutions. "I was startled at the progress City and County made in a short period of time."
City & County now pushes paper as part of 74 business processes, down from 88 before deploying paperless technologies, Pierce added.
That's despite the mountain of paper that accompanied the CU's 279% monthly increase in indirect lending, a process that is typically paper-heavy. Regulations regarding the collections process have also required the CU to use more paper.
Normalized for the increase in lending volume and regulatory requirements, the paperless project accounts for a 37% reduction in paper, Coleman said. Paper specifically used in bankruptcies was reduced 97%, and the front line uses 45% fewer pages.
'Significant' Savings Expected
City & County has not yet investigated ROI from the technology, but cost savings are most likely "significant," according to Pierce.
Pierce said he appreciates the way Bluepoint technology mirrors City & County's "member-centric" approach to document management. "Everything goes into the member's electronic file according to account number, just like we were doing with paper."
When a member hands the CU a piece of paper, such as a check or loan document, the front-line scans each page immediately instead of stacking them up for batch scanning later.
"If you send loan documents to a scanning station, the loan officer will have to make a paper copy so they can refer to the documents meanwhile," Pierce said. "Where's the savings in that?"
City & County still sees a lot of paper in two areas-signature-based documents and human resources documents, he continued.
Once the CU deploys a new loan origination system next year, electronic signature technology will help eliminate signature-based paper, said Pierce.
City & County wants to be able to encrypt human resources documents before converting them to electronic processes, he said. Bluepoint will provide encryption capabilities in a future release and currently enables the CU to lock down documents with access permissions tools, Coleman said.
Pierce has mandated the paperless revolution at City & County, which is why the project has been so successful, said Andrew Tilbury, Bluepoint CMO. "The biggest obstacle we see among our clients deploying an effective content management system is that it doesn't come from the top." City & County employees must make a case for each piece of paper they use, he said.
