4 minutes
Sponsored by D+H
$1.1 billion/47,128-member Beacon Credit Union, Wabash, Ind., has its roots in the farm community. It was founded in 1931 by a group of farmers who were tired of dealing with banks that did not understand the farming business. Today, this full-service financial institution is the top agricultural lending credit union in the U.S., with a lending staff composed of individuals with hands-on farming backgrounds and agribusiness degrees. Although agricultural lending is the credit union’s niche, Beacon CU writes other types of commercial loans and maintains thriving consumer and mortgage lending practices – all of which used to rely on a legacy loan documentation system.
“Shortly after I came to the credit union, we got news that our existing system was being sunset,” explains Trisha Loker, VP/commercial and agricultural lending for Beacon CU. “So, we set out to find a viable replacement with more capabilities than what we had before.” The greater challenge? This one solution had to win the approval of all the lending units, each of which had its own priorities and ideas of what type of system the credit union needed.
“We were unique in that we wanted one doc prep solution for consumer, mortgage, commercial and agricultural lending documentation,” Loker says. “For us, it didn’t make sense to have multiple software programs doing the same thing for our different lending areas.” Loker and team began searching for one solution that would make everyone happy.
“Obviously, compliance is a big issue. We’ve had so many compliance changes on the retail and mortgage lending side, we needed to have a comfort level that the provider we chose stayed on top of the legislation,” Loker says. “We didn’t want to be in a situation where a regulation went into effect March 1, and we didn’t see a new release until November.”
Second, the new solution had to integrate with Beacon CU’s core system. “We wanted to eliminate duplicate keystrokes anywhere we could, so integration with the core system was a must,” Loker says.
Finally, the new system had to offer dynamic documents to reduce inefficiencies caused by manual processes. “Our old doc prep system generated static documents. So, our processors spent a lot of time using scissors, tape and copy machines to get names on the documents,” Loker says. “Finding a solution with dynamic documents meant eliminating all of this manual work.”
Loker had long used D+H products before she came to Beacon CU. She was already aware of the capabilities, ease of use and compliance strength that LaserPro provides. “When the due diligence began, I went straight to LaserPro,” she says. “From my background with the product, I knew it could meet all of our financial institution’s needs.”
However, with no prior history with D+H themselves, the rest of the search committee was not completely convinced. “The credit union had been with the previous vendor for decades, so they didn’t really know a lot about LaserPro and the compliance team behind it,” Loker says. “So, they were understandably skeptical.” Ultimately, it came down to two contenders. But, after in-depth conversations with colleagues from other institutions that used each system, everyone agreed: LaserPro was the clear winner.
The net result? With LaserPro, the Beacon CU processing staff gets more done in less time. “We would not have been able to grow our loan business without adding a mass of people with our old processes. With LaserPro, we can grow and support that growth with the staff we have.”
Just as important as the technology itself is the reliability of the company behind it. “I really can’t say enough about the people at D+H. They’re compliance experts, who always stay one step ahead of the regulations, so we don’t have to worry,” she says. “And both the case management system and support team are outstanding.”
Loker also frequently attends Connections, the D+H annual client conference, not only to learn about upcoming releases, but to provide her input on which product enhancements are needed next. “At Connections, users have the opportunity to sit in a room with a developer and talk about what we’d like to see, what tweaks would make the product work better for us,” Loker says. “The amazing thing is that those developers listen and make enhancements based on user input. To me, that’s a real partnership. That’s why I’m a D+H fan.”
