Western Independent Banker - September/October 2008 - (Page 15)

By Marie VerMeer Remote Deposit Capture: Lessons Learned FIRST INDEPENDENT BANK business and technology personnel began exploring the Remote Deposit Capture (RDC) solution in the spring of 2006. There was agreement that RDC was an optimum fit for our brand strategy – we target business clients who are serious about money and growing their revenues. As a cash management solution, RDC was another channel our clients could choose to enhance their relationship with us, and another tool that would demonstrate to our clients that we’re “ready when you are®,” our bank’s brand promise. The First Independent team did extensive research on product feature options, benefits and requirements, infrastructure requirements and legal requirements – as well as product pitfalls. We issued request for proposals (RFPs) to three vendors in the fall of 2006, selected our vendor in early 2007 and began the implementation, testing and pilot process. The time the team spent researching and evaluating truly paid off, but we definitely learned things on our journey – both from a business and a technical standpoint. Following is a sampling of the lessons learned and items that we felt were important to consider on our Remote Deposit Capture implementation journey. Partner with the business to identify and agree on product goals and success factors. This is a critical first step to determining whether your bank should even pursue implementation of the product. What are the goals of the product? Is it a defensive tactic? A channel to attract and grow deposits? A business tool option for your corporate (and potentially consumer) clients? Our project management office worked in collaboration with the business, finance and marketing to establish deployment goals for the end of the first year (2007) and the end of the second year (2008) and evaluated results: the business exceeded first year deployment goals for 2007 and is well on its way to meeting (and hopefully beating) 2008 goals. Carefully evaluate (and closely question) vendors to determine how well (and even if) their product aligns with your bank’s technology infrastructure. Our bank utilizes a Citrix environment. Although the product we chose to implement is Web-based, the back-end processing required a download of software – which required some workarounds. Most RDC vendor solutions utilize a “credits first” environment – our processing environment is “debits first,” which required the vendor to complete some custom development in order to create files that our item processing system would accept. Define requirements for product deployment and support, and ensure that the vendor’s offering will meet those requirements. We made the decision (in partnership with the business) that we did not want to initially add to internal infrastructure to support this product (inhouse hardware/software, scanner deployment, training, first level client support). Based on this decision, we evaluated vendor options to determine which vendors could provide these services – and questioned their references regarding their experiences in these areas. Spend time on the legal aspects of implementing Remote Deposit Capture – end client as well as vendor. We opted to use a vendor who provides an Application Service Provider (ASP) model, and our evaluation included their data security procedures, data center security, backup and disaster recovery plans. We spent a considerable amount of time partnering with an external legal expert to develop a robust client agreement that covered a wide spectrum of risk areas, including item storage and secure destruction, service levels and item quality. Marie VerMeer is vice president and manager of the project support office of First Independent Bank in Vancouver, Wash. For more information on First Independent’s experience, please contact Marie VerMeer at 360-619-5708 or marie.vermeer@firstindy.com. For more lessons learned, attend the “Remote Deposit Capture – Lessons Learned” concurrent session at upcoming WIB Technology and Security Summit, October 1-3 at the Green Valley Resort in Las Vegas. IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE. Use an experienced guide. LarsonAllen’s CPAs, consultants, and advisors are dedicated to providing quality results. Our industry specialists tailor our services to your needs. We offer a wealth of business resources to each of our clients. General controls | Network penetration | SAS 70 Audit | Tax services | Regulatory compliance DeNovo banks | Trust and ﬁduciary services ©2008 LarsonAllen LLP Western Independent Banker September/October 2008 390717_LarsonAllen.indd 1 15 7/11/08 5:11:03 PM http://www.larsonallen.com/

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Western Independent Banker - September/October 2008

Western Independent Banker - September/October 2008 Contents A Message from the President & CEO What To Do When Good Employees Go Bad! Remote Deposit Capture: What’s Your Target Market? Remote Deposit Capture: Lessons Learned Debit Decoupling: Part of Larger Merchant Funding Trend Debit at the Speed of Life: A Look at Debit Technologies on the Rise ID Theft Rule: Automating the Compliance Process Lose Paper and Gain Audit Trails Data Loss Prevention: A New Package on an Old Idea Securing Data in Transit Margin Management: Get in the Driver’s Seat Shopping for Cyber Insurance WIB Service Corporation Report WIB Calendar Welcome New Members Index to Advertisers advertiser.com

Western Independent Banker - September/October 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.