MDA Success Story: M1 Global Solutions and Regions Bank

Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Contact:
M1 Global Solutions, Inc.
www.m1global.com 

Type of Industry: Financial Services

Application Name: Branch Out

Description:
Currently, the market is well supplied with online banking engines - tools allowing their customers to view their accounts and perform convenience-based functions such as account transfers and online bill pay. However, there is a void for products that allow a customer to apply for and fund an account online. This is especially true for online loan acquisition, which is a profit product for the financial industry.

Problem:
Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama, which consists of 180 branches in nine states in the U.S. Southeast, needed to expand their online banking product suite to include new account acquisition, enrollment and management. The choices before Regions Bank were: build the application from scratch exactly to their specification, or buy an off-the-shelf solution that would inevitably require significant customization. Integration with existing systems, time to market and overall cost were all deciding factors.

Solution:
NCGi, a system integrator, wanted to be proactive in presenting Regions Bank with not only a solution, but with a methodology to reach that solution as well; i.e. the Object Management Group's Model Driven Architecture (MDA). NCGi knew that M1 Global Solutions  had an MDA-compliant tool that they used to create an application called Branch Out that contained much of Region's original specification.

M1 Global Solutions  Corporation created an online banking application called Branch Out. To create this application, M1 Global Solutions  used their, soon-to-be called MDA-compliant product, the Meta Development Environment (MDE). Work on Branch Out began well before the OMG identified such a development methodology as being in the classification of MDA. M1 Global Solutions , having expertise in financial services, built Branch Out as a proof of concept for their development tool MDE.

NCGi, armed with a portion of the Branch Out PIM (Platform Independent Model) and MDE as their MDA development tool, was able to create an application perfectly suited to Regions Bank specifications. NCGi was able to deploy this enterprise-wide application within 90 days. Additionally, the entire effort took less than half of the anticipated resources for such a project. These last two points address the inherit benefits of an MDA architecture and development methodology.

The end result has been netting approximately 20-30 new customer applications a day and can be taken during a 24-hour period. As anticipated, most applications are processed after normal banking hours.

Benefits:
The end user banking institution, Regions Bank, now has a completely customizable product that allows for: definition of new products, selection of application type - fast track or detailed, selection for required and non-required fields--including disclosures, definition of internal approval process (automated or manual selection for each step from client initiation to online scoring to final approval), GUI administrative interface to review and process applications as needed.

The system integrator, NCGi, has realized professional services revenue associated with the customization of Branch Out to the specifications of Regions Bank. Additionally, they are now fully trained on the principals of MDA and can move forward with this approach in other customizations.

The combined benefit to both organizations is that an enterprise-wide application was developed in a 3rd of the time usually required for such projects, which resulted in significant savings to the customer.

"Our customers are looking for results, not just products. Our relationship with M1 Global Solutions  provides a great product that can be customized to fit the needs of our customers," said Pete Butler, Director of Business Development for NCGi. ""We have found great success in using the M1 Global Solutions  tools. The Model Driven Architecture and the M1 Global Solutions  toolset allowed us to produce a powerful web-based loan acquisition product in 90 days. Obviously, that is fantastic and the result of using the M1 Global Solutions  product."

Thanks to M1 Global Solutions 's solution, Regions Bank is now experiencing the following benefits:

Financial Gain--Each application received is a potential profit product for the financial institution. It is easy to measure the number of loans applied for vs. the number approved.

Client Base Expansion--By offering products online, the expansion of the client base is certain. No longer are clients tied to brick and mortar locations. They are free to find the institution that provides them with the choices, convenience and service they prefer.

Personnel Savings--Banks can save internally by automating the approval processes such as online scoring and credit checks.

Future goals:

• Increase product offerings

• Add flash interface

• Allow for online loan payments

• Allow for online account funding via ACH transfer