Open Solutions Inc., Glastonbury
Seneca Falls Savings Bank in Seneca Falls, N.Y., recently renewed and extended its initial contract, which was signed in 1995, with Glastonbury-based Open Solutions Inc., or OSI, for The Complete Banking Solution, a relational core data processing platform for banks. The bank was the second client to originally partner with Open Solutions to address its enterprise-wide data processing needs.
Before the bank converted to Open Solutions almost 10 years ago, its operations were on a legacy system that had very poor reliability. According to Menzo Case, executive vice president and chief financial officer of the $150 million bank with four locations, the previous system seemed to go down just when important customer information was needed by the bank.
“In the last 10 years, since we switched to Open Solutions’ technology, our core system has been down less than four hours out of 87,600 operational hours,” Case said.
Senior Vice President and General Manager of Open Solutions’ Banking Group Jim Kern said, “Open Solutions has a rich history with Seneca Falls Savings Bank. Its management team has worked with Open Solutions in a true business partnership, and we in turn have worked very hard to provide them with the type of technology that is designed to further the bank’s competitive advantage in an ever-broadening marketplace.
“Additionally, we strive to accommodate the changing business needs of our clients. Our software development teams work closely with our Client Association, examine the current trends in the industry and look to the future when making enhancements to our products. It truly comes down to innovation and consistently delivering the types of products and services for which our clients are looking. The fact that the management at Seneca Falls decided to sign a 10-year renewal attests to the strength of our technology and our company. We thank them for their ongoing trust and support.”
The bank’s contract was up for renewal earlier this year, and Case said that because its core processing systems’ performance exceeded the industry norm, when the time came to think about exploring alternative data processing solutions for the bank, nothing matched Open Solutions.
“As our financial service needs have grown, Open Solutions’ products and services have expanded to meet our customers’ banking requests. We’ve implemented new products across all lines of business from Internet banking to business lending to financial planning products to Check 21 solutions,” Case said.
Open Solutions uses relational database technology and has designed its solution to help financial institutions improve their customer relations. Its comprehensive suite of products and services was developed to enable financial institutions to retrieve detailed customer information and gain a complete picture of each customer and the relationships they have with the bank.
Seneca Falls Savings Bank is also taking advantage of Open Solutions’ new FedForward image cash letter deposit, a module of the Federal Reserve’s FedForward suite of products. The FedForward Image Cash Letter Deposit solution gives financial institutions the ability to reduce transportation costs and improve availability of funds through the electronic clearing of checks, presenting substitute checks, or an electronic file, to the paying bank.
Bank Grants Scholarships
The Simsbury Bank & Trust Co. recently granted its third annual scholarships to three outstanding local high school students graduating in 2005: Christopher Stevenson of Avon, Richard Kremer of Simsbury and Nicholas Keenan of Granby.
The criteria of the scholarships is that the student plans to study business, management, economics or a related field with a preference that the student attend a Connecticut public four-year college or university. The bank’s directors, officers and employees congratulate all the scholarship recipients and wish all local graduates the very best and brightest of futures.
