Headlines:
Loan Automation Unit at TransUnion
TransUnion LLC has created a business unit, Cordance Technologies Inc., to help financial institutions automate lending decisions.
The TransUnion Real Estate Services unit uses the Chicago credit bureau's ePolicy decisioning technology to provide workflow automation and streamline supply chain management functions.
Rich Lynch, the president of TransUnion Real Estate, said in a press release that, "we saw an opportunity to develop a vendor-agnostic portal solution to improve our customers' business processes and we seized it."
"As more and more industries realize the power of data and analytics to improve traditional processes, we believe the demand for our services will grow exponentially."
According to TransUnion, Cordance already has a customer: SunTrust Banks Inc. Jeff Hooper, a SunTrust Banks Inc., said in TransUnion's press release that the Cordance management system can use his company's lending rules and guidelines to select the appropriate underwriting products for a transaction.
The system allows the Atlanta banking company close loans more quickly and at lower cost, while improving customer satisfaction, Mr. Hooper said.
TransUnion announced the unit's creation Monday in Orlando at the Mortgage Bankers Association's 92nd annual convention.
Technology Leaser Using SAP Software
CSI Leasing Inc. of St. Louis, the largest independent U.S. information technology leasing company, has agreed to use leasing software from SAP AG of Walldorf, Germany, to manage its operations.
SAP, which announced the deal Monday, said CSI plans to replace several legacy computer systems with the SAP application.
CSI (formerly known as Computer Sales International) is discussing the requirements for the application with managers and users before developing a working prototype. The company plans to introduce the software first in Canada, a market that is similar to but smaller than the U.S. one.
Christoph Schmidt, a senior vice president at CSI, said the rollout will take 15 months.
It spent more than a year evaluating products from a number of vendors, to replace a proprietary lease management and accounts receivable system that is more than 20 years old, Mr. Schmidt said.
SAP's software "had much more flexibility and was designed with a closer model in mind for technology leasing," he said. CSI's leases frequently involve thousands of pieces of equipment and a constantly changing inventory, so the management and reporting needs are complex, he said.
CSI owns more than $850 million of assets leased to customers in Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Germany, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Last week Deutsche Postbank AG, one of the largest retail banks in Germany, said it has converted 17 million retail savings accounts to SAP's Deposit Management application.
Postbank, of Bonn, moved its master customer database and its checking accounts to SAP in 2003 and its lending accounts last year.
Dirk Berensmann, a member of the Postbank management board, who oversees operations and transaction banking, said the conversion would hold down software costs, improve its process management, and let it bring savings products to market more quickly with lower development cost.
"Standardization not only keeps the software costs in check, it also forces us to adopt lean banking processes," he said in SAP's press release.
