Out-of-The-Box Back End Gives Marquis Bank an Easy Debut

Like in many US regions, the local banks in North Miami Beach have all but disappeared, having been acquired by their larger rivals. But some of the area’s veteran bankers believe that industry consolidation has left a gap in the market for a community bank that caters to commercial customers, including small businesses. That is the rationale behind the formation of Marquis Bank (IO), which will open the doors of its first branch in summer 2007.

Opening a de novo bank is no easy feat. Physical space and security needs to be set up and employees recruited and hired. New products need to be created that will generate brand awareness and attract customers. On top of that, ensuring compliance with federal and state laws as well as city codes is a major challenge.

Marquis Bank, launching this summer, is targeting small businesses and other commercial customers in the Miami area.

But Marquis Bank figured out it could save time and money by outsourcing its technology needs to Harland Financial Solutions. Harland’s Phoenix System will handle all Marquis Bank’s processing, including core, check item and ATM. It will generate the bank’s new account opening, deposit and loan forms. The bank will use the document imaging, enterprise content management (ECM) and computer output to laser disk (COLD) functionality to scan all its documents and generate reports. In addition, it will use the accounting functionality in the accounts payable and fixed assets components of Harland’s Financial Management Software.

Harland has positioned itself as a strategic partner to Marquis Bank. If the bank needs something that is not provided by the Phoenix System, Harland will do the necessary research to determine the best way to fill the gap. For instance, the Phoenix System includes some functionality that will allow Marquis Bank to comply with the Bank Secrecy Act and USA Patriot Act. But the South Florida regulators are notoriously stringent when it comes to compliance, and both sides agreed that Marquis Bank needed the support of a complementary solution.

Harland recommended a partnership with Los Angeles-based Bankers Toolbox, which offers BAM, an end-to-end solution for monitoring and reporting suspicious financial activity. BAM aggregates, compiles, stores and analyzes data; identifies high risk and potentially suspicious activities; shares notes and automatically files a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR); keeps track of filed SARs and stores records of high risk customers. The solution is fully integrated with the Phoenix System.

Working with Harland streamlines technology management for the bank. “We looked at many different core processors when we started the selection process,” says Mike Apelian, operations officer at Marquis Bank. “Doing full outsourcing with Phoenix just gave us this ability to deal with one entity rather than multiples when putting the full systems together.”

Clearly the relationship aspect was a deciding factor, but Marquis Bank also found Harland’s XML OpenPath concept particularly attractive. According to Apelian, some of the other systems the bank looked at were updated by fronting the core with a GUI interface. In contrast, the XML OpenPath allows Marquis Bank to utilize all of Harland’s products in a true Windows-based environment.

The Phoenix System’s components, including the deposit, loan and general ledger applications, are standardized and fully integrated. All Harland’s applications are being rewritten in Microsoft .NET, and all of its third party interfaces go through the OpenPath middleware, which is a Microsoft .NET XML application. That makes it easier to interface with the third party systems Marquis Bank uses for ID verification and automated wire transfers.

The branch and remote capture capabilities in the Phoenix System will enable Marquis Bank to compete with the larger banks and grow its customer base beyond the local area. “Having the ability right from the get-go to have remote merchant capture to offer to our clients is an absolute wonder to us,” says Apelian. “If we wanted to, we could reach across state lines and have a deposit customer that never even has to come to the bank.”

In addition, the Phoenix System gives Marquis Bank the flexibility to create new products quickly. The bank has three databases – a production database, a backup and a secondary. When Marquis Bank wants to roll out a new product, it can do so on the secondary system and have Harland monitor and test it to see how it flows with the rest of the system before going live.

For Marquis Bank, Harland’s Phoenix System is a platform for growth. In fact, the bank already plans to open its second branch within 18 months. “They basically have about everything we offer,” says Damon Mason, customer relationship manager at Harland Financial Solutions.

www.harlandfinancialsolutions.com

By Sherree DeCovny