AFSCommerce® Fosters Explosive Growth at Startup Bank

Created to meet the needs of growing businesses in the Southwest, one of AFS' bank customers launched in 1998 with initial capitalization of $80 million, rendering it the largest startup bank in U.S. history. Since startup, it has experienced a phenomenal annual growth rate of 25-30%. To help them sustain that growth, the bank has chosen AFSCommerce as its core lending software solution.

Privately owned and operated, the bank was founded by experienced, entrepreneurial bankers whose mission is to help other successful individuals and businesses achieve their financial goals. The bank targets high net worth individuals and middle market businesses ranging from energy to commercial real estate to high tech.

The bank's goal is to redefine banking by reviving traditional quality service and combining it with technology that will benefit customers now and in the future. Last year, they realized that to sustain their explosive growth, they would need a feature-rich corporate-sized lending software solution that offered startup-sized affordability. Their answer came in the form of AFSCommerce, AFS's leading edge Web-based software solution offered on a completely outsourced basis.

"We chose AFS as a key strategic partner in technology and delivery, offering the best of breed in the market" said the company's CEO and President. "The AFSCommerce solution will allow us to further our commitment to relationship banking by increasing the speed in which loans are processed and allowing customers greater control over their finances."

AFSCommerce Offers Corporate-sized Functionality with Startup-sized Affordability

AFSCommerce is the only Application Service Provider (ASP) that combines all the lending infrastructure, software integration, support and processing services for a financial institution within a Web-based environment. The system addresses integrated front-end origination to back-end decision support via a browser, thus eliminating data entry problems, validation steps, exception tracking and reconciliation problems. AFS manages the hardware needed to run the system and all software upgrades and ancillary maintenance issues in a data center outside Philadelphia.

With AFSCommerce, the bank is able to access the same feature-rich lending technology as a larger organization with a much smaller up-front investment.

Once the solution has been implemented, the bank will benefit from a shorter sales cycle, enhanced delivery, improved end-to-end customer service and elimination of many duplicate costs.