TAMPA, Fla. — At Florida's larget credit union, software has replaced what has traditionally been one of the most manual of processes–managing safe deposit boxes.
Suncoast Schools FCU is using the safe deposit management system from SQN Banking Systems of Secaucus, N.J., to manage 5,220 safe deposit boxes at 10 branches among the 50 service centers the $6.2 billion CU operates across its 15-county service area.
The solution allows the credit union staffer to electronically sign the box holder in, verify a driver's license or other identification, capture a signature and then sign the box holder out afterward, while automatically capturing time and date information.
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Other functionality includes automatically checking Office of Foreign Assets Control and other lists to qualify new box holders, and alerts that let staffers know which member is next on the waiting list for an available box when it comes open. Billing also is electronic, available as an ACH or direct account debit process.
SQN, provider of integrated fraud detection and process improvement solutions to more than 500 financial institutions, has about 25 credit unions on its client list, about half of them using the safe deposit management system, said Stan Jaslar, the company's chief technology officer.
Installations range from just one site to as many as 46 locations for one of the company's larger bank clients, Jaslar said. He said the company prefers to deploy the solution through a central server, although clients can opt to run it in-house at each location.
Suncoast uses the centralized solution, running it on two servers at its central data center in Tampa.
The centralized system not only automates processes at the branch level, it allows the CU executive in charge of the operation to easily stay on top of things, she said.
"All of the paperwork for each safe deposit box used to reside at the respective branch," said Linda Calhoun, vice president of member services. "Since I am responsible for managing that information, anytime I wanted access to it, I had to have it mailed.
"Now I can view it anytime I want, and it makes my job a lot easier."
Her staff's, too. It all happens on a computer screen now, instead of having to leave a member waiting while a staffer pulled the signature card, brought it to the member for signing, verified it with the card and driver's license and then allowed access to the box.
Calhoun said it took a while to set up the existing box inventory in the new system, but now computer records replace physical paper files that had to be securely stored and laboriously searched when someone requested an old record for legal or other purposes.
"Missing information is no longer an issue. Auditing boxes is now a breeze for the front office and reports can easily be generated," she added.
Jaslar, the chief technology officer at SQN, said, "Basically we're trying to make the whole safe deposit box management issue a paperless system. It also can work differently at each institution, of course. For instance, at Suncoast, we specifically added the ability for them to interface with their OnBase archive document system."
Jaslar said most of his company's installations are replacing paper-based processes, occasionally supplementing or replacing "rudimentary systems that come with a new core vendor installation in a conversion. Those systems, however, usually don't store authorized signatures or photographs, that sort of thing. They might have a billing system and that's about it."
SQN's solution for managing a single vault runs about $4,500, Jaslar said, with volume pricing for each additional location.
As for the return on investment, Calhoun at Suncoast Schools said, "We'll measure ROI in terms of efficiency and, if it happens, facilitating disaster recovery."
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