PURCHASE, N.Y. – Kraft Foods Federal Credit Union's decision to go with Digital Insight's new loan-origination system (LOS) was a matter of simple logic. Boolean logic. The logic system that helped launch digital technology itself also drives the decision-making machine in DeskTopLender Premium, which the $535 million CU is going live with this month. "Boolean logic enables our decision engine to handle incredibly complex rules and also gives the engine the capability to re-think itself along the way," says Bob Surridge, senior vice president of Digital Insight's Lending Division. Two years in the making, the DeskTopLender Premium is unique in its use of Boolean logic in a proprietary engine, Surridge says. "Linear and matrixed options are unable to make the number of automated decisions that a Boolean-based engine can. The result is a higher number of automated decisions processed than our competition, which has to send many applications to a manual process and can't handle the sophisticated rules that our engine handles with ease," Surridge maintains. The new platform integrates the member-facing AnyTime Lender, in-branch DeskTop Lender and CallCenter Lender applications, as well as streamlines front- and back-office lending operations, allowing loan officers to focus more on working with members, Calabasas, Calif.-based DI says. The DI solution replaces two that Kraft Foods FCU had been using: CRIterion 16 bit for consumer loans and Uniform, by ASC, for second mortgages, says its president and CEO, Bruno Sementilli. Sementilli says his CU was reaching the end of a software cycle on its existing LOS and wanted a new system that would serve as a Web-based application service provider (ASP) while combining the Web, call center and after-hours call center member-facing services that Kraft Foods FCU offers. It also needed to integrate with the CU's core processing system from Summit and its credit card processing from PSCU. Sementilli says they also wanted to work with an established company experienced in innovation and already had such a relationship through its Internet banking work with DI. The technical challenges in setting up the system are minimal, Surridge says. "At its simplest, technical deployment of the entire solution in a credit union can be accomplished by sending an e-mail with a URL attached. All a credit union needs to use any of our lending solutions is an Internet connection," he says. The biggest job, he says, is to "work with the financial institution and ensure that their lending policies are represented accurately in the system and that the workflow of the back office is set up to provide better efficiencies through funding. "Then it's as easy as logging on to the Internet and turning on the application volume." At Kraft Foods FCU, the current volume is about 800 applications a month. Sementilli says he now expects to see "dramatic streamlining" of his organization's application, approval and fulfillment processes, including automating more than 50% of its consumer loan apps and 80% of its second mortgages. Such efficiencies should lower turnaround times, improve overall lending operations and help lower operational costs, and "reduced loan processing costs translates to better loan rates," Sementilli says. "Learning the system was the easiest part of the project," he adds. "Screen flow and data input is intuitive to most users and most of the training is about how our new loan process works." -

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