A community bank in Pennsylvania has hired Metavante Corp. to resell the intranet management software it developed for in-house use.
The agreement, announced last week, broadens the potential market for eBusiness Content Manager, developed by S&T Bank of Indiana, Pa. Metavante, the Milwaukee financial technology subsidiary of Marshall & Ilsley Corp., provides products and services to more than 5,100 financial institutions.
David Ruddock, the senior vice president of operations and technology at the subsidiary of the $2.9 billion-asset S&T Bancorp Inc., said the target customers are community and regional banks like S&T.
"We haven't thrown millions of dollars at promoting this," but S&T has sold the software to a handful of banks on its own and has one other "boutique" reseller agreement, he said in an interview July 28. "Banks that look like us, a little larger or a little smaller, are dealing with the same frustrations we are. As we go out and sell it, we're enhancing it for our own benefit as well as those of our customers."
S&T decided three years ago to build its own intranet system after searching the market for such technology, Mr. Ruddock said. "We saw some very high-end solutions out there," some costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and requiring extensive training. "But we couldn't find anything that we felt fit our needs for the kind of bank we are. We weren't thinking about marketing it at the time."
A year later it had built the first version of its system and pitched the idea of a reseller agreement to Metavante, he said.
eBCM enables employees to publish information to an internal Web site. A permission-based system that ties in to existing log-ins on the company network, it allows workers to use spreadsheet or word-processing software they already know. It includes news alert capabilities, as well as resource information and workflow modules.
Banks can use the alert function to share information widely and quickly, Mr. Ruddock said. For instance, if a teller turned away someone trying to cash a suspicious check, the branch manager could post an alert online to warn other offices of the risk.
Internal resources such as procedures, policies, manuals, and forms can be put online. S&T saves $8,500 a year, because it does not have to reprint its employee handbook when changes occur in insurance coverage and the like, he said.
The software includes customer-service features. For instance, if an account holder reports a new address, a branch employee can transmit the information to the back office to make the change. "Banks historically have been very cautious about letting employees change sensitive customer information," Mr. Ruddock said.
As S&T developed the software, it added features sought by bank employees - and increasingly, by outside customers, he said. For instance, it put in a calendar function, so employees could use the software to reserve conference rooms or register for training classes.
