Overview

AFS Commercial Loan Origination streamlines, tracks, and controls the entire commercial lending origination process by automating informaticon gathering, decisioning, underwriting, document preparation, and loan booking tasks. As the fully integrated front-end of the AFS straight-through processing business model, the system creates dramatic efficiencies through its built-in workflow management logic and systems connectivity capabilities.

Implementation execution is the key to maximizing results the system offers. To that end, AFS Commercial Loan Origination implementation encompasses system customization using business rules developed from a bank's own policies, product definitions, user roles, and operating procedures, as well as the application of AFS' industry "best practices" expertise.

Rules-based systematic management of loan origination and its associated processes reduces credit and operational risk by reinforcing credit policy, providing an audit trail for decisioning, identifying operating exceptions, and ensuring completion of documentation requirements. Automation of this process provides consistency in the organization's response to credit requests and reduces staff time to process loans. Customer response is faster, and service staff has the ability to view deal structures and track the status of loan requests online to respond to customer inquiries.

Benefits

AFS provides value by enabling a bank to manage risk, cut costs, and generate revenue.

		Manage Risk: AFS Commercial Loan Origination provides accountability by building bank policy into daily processes that are systematically monitored. Exceptions are identified and reported so that immediate attention can be focused on corrective actions, preventing losses. AFS Commercial Loan Origination mitigates: —   Credit risk, by identifying credit policy exceptions and improving compliance, including consistency in decisioning treatment of loan applications and the identification of unauthorized credit approvals or overrides. —   Operational risk, by monitoring loans from first point of origin to booking -- identifying process anomalies, including pricing and collateral exceptions, fee waivers, and missing or incomplete documentation. —   Regulatory Exposure, by providing the ability to capture and report more in-depth information on customers, facilitating "know your customer" accountabilities and supporting expanded internal audit informational needs. Through its integration with the AFS Level III Loan Accounting system, it provides access to total exposure by customer for decision-making.
		Cut Costs: By automating many of the processes that have historically been manual (decisioning, document production, perfection, customer notification, repetitive data entry) and by tracking individual performance, AFS Commercial Loan Origination reduces costs. Typically, the system automates 80% of commercial loan origination tasks and eliminates the remaining 20%. The system gathers and integrates information from internal and external sources (including loan accounting, credit analysis, and credit reporting databases) to facilitate faster, more educated decisions on complex deals. Additionally, significantly less staff time is required for manually intensive error research and resolution. Reporting focused on productivity management enhances time to market, turnaround, and staff efficiency.
		Generate Revenue: AFS Commercial Loan Origination assigns fees and reviews rates in accordance with bank policy for each lending product as a loan is booked. AFS Commercial Loan Origination clients achieve increases of three to five basis points on their portfolios attributed to the management of pricing exceptions. Revenue accrues earlier in the process due to faster booking and delinquencies are monitored to reduce losses.

Features

The AFS Commercial Loan Origination system encompasses several significant commercial lending processes -- deal specifics, financial analysis and risk, approval/notification, and closing preparation, as follows:

		Deal Specifics: —   Accepts credit requests from authorized users (commercial lenders, private bankers, etc.) —   Enables loan characteristics to vary based on product type —   Manages pricing, billing, collateral requirements —   Can be tailored to any lending environment or commercial credit product —   Holds, accumulates, and electronically routes credit information
		Financial Analysis and Risk: —   Interfaces to statement spreading tools and includes tailored financial analysis —   Interfaces with external rating tools and risk models —   Includes important fields from the financial statement spreads in the credit request —   Provides unlimited space for underwriting memos —   Gathers appropriate risk rating information for obligors and facilities
		Approval/Notification: —   Customizes rules for electronic credit request or credit authorization —   Determines required approval authorizations —   Forwards approval request to appropriate person for a credit decision
		Closing Preparation: —   Submits requests to lenders for any additional information needed to document and close —   Interfaces to a document preparation system to complete and print loan documentation —   Notifies lenders of declined deals and deals that are ready to close based on receipt of all required information and preparation of documents —   Captures an unlimited number of related fees, which are booked to the loan accounting system to reduce revenue leakage —   Automates booking of the borrower, obligation, collateral, and guaranties to the loan accounting system to mitigate risk