Intelligent Finance issue a formal mortgage offer within 24 hours

IF offers 24 hour mortgage offers



Intelligent Finance has pledged to issue a formal mortgage offer within 24 hours of receiving a completed mortgage pack as part of its new service standards.



Cammy Amaira, director of sales at Intelligent Finance, says: "When your profession is mortgage sales, there is nothing more frustrating than delays in processing.



“We're confident that we can deliver our new mortgage promise consistently providing the broker provides the necessary documentation in the mortgage pack to support the application and a valuation has been done on the property.



"I'm delighted that we're now in a position to offer an even better service. This reflects well on us as a lender but, more importantly, leaves clients with a good impression on the service provided by the broker.



“This can be crucial in building a long-term relationship with clients."



Simon Ring, proprietor of Ring Associates, says: "Brokers have huge expectations of the service they should receive and it's the differentiating factor for any successful lender."



http://www.mortgagestrategy.co.uk

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Cumberland Building Society selects Alaric

Cumberland Building Society selects Alaric technology for online banking



Alaric International, a leading supplier of advanced technology solutions for the card payments industry, today announced that it is providing the technology platform for the launch of a new online banking service for Cumberland Building Society.



The internet banking solution will be offered to personal and business customers later this year and is being delivered in partnership with Sandstone Technology, a leading developer and integrator of specialised software, services and solutions for the financial services market.



Sandstone will be delivering full internet banking functionality for the new system through the implementation of its industry-leading Direct Banking platform, BankLink. An extension of Alaric's Authentic authorisation, switching and ATM management system already implemented at Cumberland Building Society will interface with both BankLink and Cumberland Building Society's host system. This will provide a 24x7 source of information for the system, including continuous real-time transaction and balance data availability, in addition to authorisation of online transaction requests. The new system is due to go live in late 2007, following pilot testing.



"Our new internet banking service will enable our current account customers to securely view and manage their accounts online 24-hours a day, seven days a week," commented John Kidd, Finance Director and Secretary, Cumberland Building Society. "The solution offered by Alaric and Sandstone delivers the flexibility, speed and world-class security to ensure a robust, reliable and convenient service for customers."



"We are delighted to be strengthening our relationship with Cumberland Building Society and extending our existing service offering for this key solution," added Steve Lomax, Director of Sales Marketing for Alaric International. "Authentic offers a proven, high performance and versatile platform to support the delivery of internet banking capabilities to banking customers. To be implementing such a key project in partnership with Sandstone is an exciting opportunity for us."



Authentic is Alaric International's highly configurable, scaleable credit, debit and charge card authorisation, payment gateway and switching solution. The Authentic system enables easy integration of existing payment systems with new delivery channels via its simple point-and-click configurable mapping technology and transparent business logic.



http://www.finextra.com

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Stroud and Swindon use MSP

Stroud Swindon provides real time KFIs with TietoEnator’s Mortgage Sales Portal



In a strategic move to improve the efficiency of its mortgage service to customers and intermediaries, Stroud Swindon Building Society has announced the purchase of TietoEnator’s Mortgage Sales Portal. The two phase project will enable Stroud Swindon to provide on-line Key Facts Illustrations (KFIs) in real-time and in the second phase to offer customers real time Acceptance in Principle (AIP) documentation. The first phase of the project is due for completion in early 2007.



Customers and intermediaries can apply for a Stroud Swindon mortgage via the company’s website but there’s currently no straight-through process for processing the application. Instead the applications are re-keyed into the existing TietoEnator mortgage quotation system and the KFIs and application forms are e-mailed to the customer or intermediary.



Commenting on the project, Keith Henley Senior Manager – Business Information Systems at Stroud Swindon said, “Our current response time for sending out KFIs is too slow, taking up to 24 hours. This will be done in real-time once the TietoEnator Mortgage Sales Portal is up and running. A fast, efficient web-based system will ensure that intermediaries have even more reason to use Stroud and Swindon and, importantly for the Society, a web-based offer enables us to attract many more customers from outside our traditional catchment area.”



The Mortgage Sales Portal will enable true straight-through processing of a mortgage application form, resulting in huge efficiency gains for the Society. Phase one of the project will enable customers and intermediaries to apply for a mortgage on-line and receive their KFI immediately. The application data will then transfer seamlessly into the TietoEnator back-end mortgage processing system without the need for re-keying. Phase two of the project will allow the Society to provide automated AIP’s to customers alongside the KFI document, thereby immediately reassuring the customer that they satisfy the Society’s lending criteria and further reducing the time required to process the application through to the approval stage.



“We shortlisted a number of vendors for this project” said Keith Henley, “and one of our major considerations was the need to interface the new system with our existing TietoEnator mortgage processing engine. Although all the vendors could create this interface, we considered TietoEnator to offer us the fastest and lowest risk option.”

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Marlborough Stirling -> Vertex

Marlborough Stirling today announced it has re-branded as Vertex Financial Services, following its acquisition by Vertex Data Science in May 2005. Under the new brand, the company will offer the combination of technology and outsourcing capability needed to manage open and closed book administration and new business acquisitions within the life and pensions and investment markets, as well as distribution, point of sale, application processing and servicing for the mortgage sector. The company also announced the appointment of Andrew Colvin to the position of Managing Director of the Life and Pensions business unit, effective November 14th 2005. Andrew joins from EDS, where he was UK Head of Insurance.





http://www.vertex.co.uk/vertex/main/home.jsp

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animation dashboard

MicroStrategy has plumbed visualisation and animation dashboard capabilities

into its business intelligence (BI) platform to create a clearer insight into

corporate data.

Business users will be able to flip between many different views of companyperformance from the dashboard.“These new dynamic dashboards are another exciting innovation in the BI

industry, allowing more people to get better insight into their corporate

performance,” said Sanju Bansal, chief operating officer of MicroStrategy.

Incorporating Adobe Flash means users can create visually stimulating dashboards. Time-series data can be seen as graphical movies rather than static

graphs using Flash Player 9. People can rewind and fast forward or drill down

for further information.

MicroStrategy’s Dynamic Enterprise Dashboards will be launched in the firsthalf of 2007 as part of the 8.1 product release.

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TietoEnator Financial Solutions UK has announced the appointment of Richard Gammon

TietoEnator Financial Solutions UK has announced the appointment of Richard Gammon to the role of Managing Director. Richard joins TietoEnator from Accenture, where he ran the UK Ireland banking division of the Financial Services Solutions Group. During more than 20 years in the financial services software industry he has held a number of senior international roles including the managing director position at Fiserv. His appointment to TietoEnator follows the retirement of Linda Fisher in December 2006.



TietoEnator is targeting the UK as a major growth area for its banking and insurance solutions and 2007 will see the announcement of a number of significant new customers and progressive new solutions.



“The UK and Ireland banking sector continues to be a competitive market and the fresh and distinctive approach that TietoEnator is bringing to this market gives the company an ability to deliver customer value in ways unachievable with the conventional offerings available elsewhere. The banks are still working on reducing the complexity of their business processes and, although modern IT platforms are necessary to achieve that, TietoEnator has experience of delivering complete solutions in markets which have already transformed to new operating models. This experience is essential to reliably delivering holistic change” explained Richard Gammon.



He continued, “TietoEnator has an excellent client base and a great reputation in the market as a trusted partner in the safe delivery of complex core solutions. This reputation is one of the drivers underpinning our growth. For example, one in five of all UK mortgages is now processed through TietoEnator systems. As banks move to take control of their cost : income ratios, the attraction of a reliable partner, able to genuinely influence the bottom line through effective contribution to business transformation is a strong one. There are plenty of software solutions in the market, but they need to be delivered with a vision of a long term strategic partnership of mutual reward and respect. TietoEnator is a prime example of how this is being done to good effect.”



Richard Gammon lives in Hampshire where he enjoys golf, horse racing and motorcycling.



http://www.finextra.com

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Mortgage Industry News

Unisys and iE sign distribution partnership for iE's e-savings and e-mortgage software

Unisys Ltd ('Unisys') and Intelligent Environments Europe Ltd ('iE') have agreed to market and distribute iE's NetFinance web based account opening and servicing products to Unisys clients. The agreement covers software implementations for a range of financial services distribution channels, including for Internet, and intermediary.

The agreement also signals iE's investment in an e-mortgage product to add to its NetFinance software suite. This product will complement Unisys' strong existing portfolio of mortgage sales, application processing and servicing solutions.
iE's proven e-banking software will be integrated with Unisys' UFSS banking platform and made available as an outsourced solution for Unisys clients. Potentially, this could deliver significant benefits to banks, building societies and their customers. The integrated approach offers straight-through processing of application and account data for mortgages and savings.

http://www.bobsguide.com