Automated Financial Systems and Advanced Computer Technologies to Provide Consumer Lending to Santander
CONTACTS:
| Media Contact: Rick Bare
rbare@afsvision.com 484-875-1471 |
Exton, PA, August 16, 2007 - Automated Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS), and Advanced Computer Technologies (ACT) have teamed to provide AFSCommerce™, an enterprise-wide credit and risk management solution. It is the industry's only fully integrated lending solution designed to process all types of loans (consumer, commercial, specialized assets, and investment banking) on a single delivery platform. Integral to AFSCommerce is its unique straight-through processing capability, encompassing the lending process from loan request through payoff or asset sale, including the delivery of management information.
Under this new agreement, AFS and ACT will be providing AFSCommerce to Santander Financial Service, Inc. (SFSI) of San Juan, Puerto Rico, a wholly owned subsidiary of Santander BanCorp (Santander). The delivery will include the AFS consumer lending system that will support operations in SFSI's 70 branches throughout Puerto Rico. Currently the second largest consumer finance company in Puerto Rico, SFSI will access AFS' automated origination, decisioning and underwriting modules, as well as core loan servicing and collections via the AFSCommerce lending application. ACT currently services Santander from its main offices in San Juan and also provides localized computing services and content management throughout Latin America.
"AFS and ACT will significantly automate existing lending processes," said Eugene S. Hudders, president of ACT. "It will enable our clients to provide additional products to their clients more quickly and give them the flexibility to respond to their customer needs and serve them more efficiently. We expect our client's customers to benefit from added convenience and enhanced responsiveness."
According to Higol Teran, VP at ACT, "We currently provide numerous services to the Santander Group and are pleased to work with AFS to bring enhanced lending capabilities to this valued client. In partnership with AFS, we believe that we are able to assure a best-of-breed consumer lending solution for the Santander Group that will differentiate them competitively and demonstrate their ongoing commitment to superior customer support." The AFS and ACT partnership offers every customer in Puerto Rico a best-of-breed consumer lending solution that will allow then to differentiate them competitively and demonstrate their ongoing commitment to superior customer support.
"We are very pleased to be partnering with ACT to introduce a straight-through process for consumer lending at Island Finance" said John Shain, president of AFS. "The combination of ACT's proven client relationship with AFS' unique lending solution provides an unprecedented opportunity to advance the lending process, increasing efficiency, enhancing customer responsiveness, and providing additional intelligence for effective business management."
About Santander Financial Services, Inc.
Santander Financial Services Inc., headquartered in San Juan, Puerto Rico, was acquired by Santander BanCorp in 2005. It provides consumer loans and real estate-secured loans to customers through its 70 stores in Puerto Rico, as well as sales finance contracts through retail merchants. The Company has approximately $650 million in loan receivables in Puerto Rico, representing about one-third of the island's consumer finance market share. Island Finance has been a leader in consumer finance for over four decades in Puerto Rico, and has the second largest market share of consumer finance lenders on the Island. The Island Finance brand is one of the most recognized brand names in financial services in Puerto Rico.
About ACT
Since its inception in 1994, ACT has become an industry leader in the design and development of case management solutions and has built a successful track record of providing customized outsourcing and web-based solutions to a constantly expanding roster of clients. The Company's web-based applications are a proven fusion of form and function that combine the latest design techniques with advanced technology. The Firm specializes in developing complex applications using user-friendly layouts structured in a way that allows for simple navigation throughout the whole application. For more information, contact ACT at www.actpr.com.
About AFS
AFS is the dominant provider of commercial lending software and services to U.S. financial institutions, combining the systems, execution expertise, and management information to mitigate risk, reduce costs, and increase revenue. The firm is headquartered in Exton, PA; its European subsidiary, Automated Financial Systems GmbH is located in Vienna, Austria. For further information, visit AFS' website at www.afsvision.com.
