Central Bank in Houston and Home Bank, Lafayette, La., Select Abound Resources, Inc. as New Strategic Technology Support Partner
28 June 2005
Central Bank in Houston and Home Bank in Lafayette, La., have selected Abound Resources, Inc. of Austin, Texas to help optimize existing technology, to control the rising cost of new technology and to meet complex regulatory requirements.
“We are extremely pleased that these two highly respected community banks have chosen our recently formed company and its breakthrough products,” said Brad Smith, Co-founder, President and a 15-year community bank technology veteran. (Photo: www.aboundresources.com/smithpicture.jpg).
“Now they have an objective, affordable support partner for optimizing their technology, managing the regulatory burden and improving the bottom line,” emphasized Smith, formerly with Deloitte & Touche.
The two community financial institutions (CFIs) join Arundel Federal Savings Bank in Baltimore, MD; Brenham National Bank in Brenham, TX, and Redstone Bank in Houston, TX, among initial clients for the pioneering business model.
“The biggest draw for me was the Business Case Wizard®, which steps the user through critical questions when making an important technology decision,” said Mike Martone, Senior Vice President of Information Technology of Central Bank. “The resulting reports promise to clarify the basis of a decision or recommendation.”
Sandi Chalmers, Chief Financial Officer at Home Bank, said they are “pleased to be working with Abound Resources. We believe that the access to the tools and intelligence reports, and further access to the technology professionals, will help us maximize the use of our technology dollars. In a previous relationship with these professionals, we gained valuable assistance and insight that really helped us achieve our goals.”
CFIs Face IT Challenges
Although technology costs have grown to be the second-largest non-interest expense for CFIs, technology optimization has dropped to less than 50% in many CFIs, and the IT regulatory burden is requiring many more resources, notes Smith. With the help of 25 community banks, industry leaders, trade associations, regulators and banking professors, Abound Resources developed a new business model – called strategic technology support – and a patent pending product, ClickSupport™ (http://www.aboundresources.com/products-services_ClickSupport.htm). The product can help increase optimization of existing technology by up to 50%; save up to 30% in hardware, software, outsourcing and data communications costs, and help manage the regulatory burden while saving a bank’s IT staff time and money.
IT Optimization Wizard™, included in ClickSupport, measures a bank’s unique IT optimization. The tool makes specific recommendations to improve optimization, save money and better align IT with the institution’s business strategy and then creates a self-managed action plan.
“The major frustration we hear from CFIs nationwide – metro, rural, in-house, outsourced, large or small – is the notion of buying more technology products before getting better optimization of their existing resources,” Smith observed. “The number of technology products in many CFIs has tripled or even quadrupled in the past decade, without the internal staff growing much at all. Our recent study of members of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas (IBAT) –revealed that 91% wanted greater optimization of their technology resources.”
In addition to the tools, the Abound Resources application provides reviews on which technologies work, counsel on software decisions and strategies on how to manage the regulatory burden. It has a library of policies and procedures that can be customized and implemented to meet both management and bank examiners’ expectations.
The company already has nearly 100 white papers on the hottest technology topics in the community financial services industry. How-to topics range from increasing penetration of Internet banking and bill payment to simplifying network management; from implementing proven technology purchasing practices to building a risk management culture. The company also provides telephone and email support on customers’ technology questions, and is available to provide support on a bank’s technology projects – from the smallest to the largest.
For More Information or Interviews:
Brad Smith, President, Abound Resources, Inc., Austin TX, 512-231-1750, e-mail protected from spam bots
or
Jacque Chrisman, The Chrisman Group, Austin TX, 512-345-8969, e-mail protected from spam bots
Source: PR Web
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