News

July 9, 2007 - eDominate helps Bank of Saint Lucia achieve strategic goals of increased customer satisfaction, growing market share and improving and sustaining loan quality

Bank of Saint Lucia Limited (BOSL) is a full service retail bank and the largest subsidiary of East Caribbean Financial Holding Company Limited (ECFH.) located in Saint Lucia, in the Eastern Caribbean. The ECFH Group is the biggest indigenous financial institution on the island.

To support achievement of the Group's strategic objectives, BOSL has identified three major lending goals geared at improving its overall performance:

increase customer satisfaction
grow market share
improve and sustain loan quality

According to Joanna Charles, Assistant General Manager - BOSL, enhancing the loan origination process is critical. "In improving the experience for loan customers, consolidating our image in the market, and increasing bottom-line growth, we must refine our processes and use the best technology to increase efficiencies."

As part of its efforts to achieve these goals, the Bank decided to fully incorporate automation into its loan process. BOSL conducted an extensive search for a premier loan origination system. eDominate's International Loan Origination System (LOS) Plus Suite was selected as the most appropriate solution in the market. "eDominate's whole approach is extremely attractive, says Garfield Charles - Business Systems Analyst - ECFH. "There were certain features we desired to incorporate that are completely proprietary to our bank. eDominate was able to adequately satisfy those various needs with respect to the LOS Solution."

BOSL required an LOS solution to assist in customizing and streamlining its consumer, mortgage, and commercial lending portfolios. eDominate's solution is not only proficient in an international setting, but also encompasses all three lending areas. International LOS Plus utilises directed workflow. This feature enables the bank to move work electronically from one person to the next, as well as track the progress with loan applications from multiple locations. The efficiency gains in the overall process, from origination to closing, will translate into shorter processing time, lower overheads and higher customer satisfaction. Introduction of eDominate's products will assist the bank in meeting its targeted customer satisfaction index of 85% by the end of 2007.

Loan process automation includes an interface between International LOS Plus and BOSL's core banking system Cecilia Ferdinand, Manager Personal Banking BOSL underscored its importance. "This feature enables the automation of General Ledger entries for loans transaction processing. This was absolutely a key element we needed, to reduce the length of time required to balance transactions for new loans which were done manually and to book better quality loans. The introduction of eDominate's solution provides the bank with a consistent, objective credit analysis process capable of operating seamlessly across all our locations."

The bank will also be implementing another module in eDominate's Suite - eManagement Center (eMC) - which allows the bank to:

track and report sales performance
identify marketing potential
access audit information
analyze performance measurement indicators

Cecilia Ferdinand believes this powerful tool will assist BOSL in a number of key areas. "Broad access to information is critical in assisting management in tracking the progression of loan applications to attain sales and loan quality targets. One of our primary objectives this year is to dramatically increase our share of wallet. We feel the access to information that eMC provides will be instrumental in achieving this objective."

Joanna Charles is quite happy and relieved with the decision to implement eDominate's International LOS Plus Suite. She explains "This final choice resulted from a lengthy process of careful software selection, and is an important step in accomplishing a challenging list of business and customer satisfaction goals in 2007."

Using appropriate technology wherever possible, the ECFH Group, through its vibrant subsidiary Bank of Saint Lucia Limited is working steadily at accomplishing these milestones and building upon them in the future.