Putting the CFI’s Low Cost of Funds to Work

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Financial institutions across the country are enjoying a low cost of funds and many CFIs are looking for ways to deploy deposits profitably. As the Federal Reserve continues a pattern of low interest rates and with the high level of liquidity on the bank’s balance sheets – what can you do to increase net interest margin?

Community banks and credit unions have been sitting on the sidelines as financial technology firms have taken over the buy now pay over time business that proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumer online purchases increased dramatically in 2020 since many retail businesses encouraged them or consumers stayed home.

Large retailers have adapted their payment processes for millennials and Gen Z’s who aren’t keen on using credit cards by allowing their customers to make fixed monthly payments over a 3-24 month period. Transparency, no hidden fees and the ability to make predictable monthly payments are reasons consumers like these new programs. Until now banks have had no way to compete for these profitable relationships.

Strunk is thrilled that we partnered with Quilo to bring to market the ability for banks to make these loans that their customers are currently getting elsewhere. Our turnkey, smart phone application is easy to use for online or in store purchases. Likewise, consumers can pay off high interest rate credit cards with the Quilo program.

If your financial institution has a low net interest margin, low cost of funds, and a desire to see what your customers are already using in the digital lending space give us a call to let us show you how our program works. The low touch, high yield lending platform is innovative and easy to manage.

Spotlight On: FINSYNC

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FINSYNC is the only all-in-one payments platform that helps businesses get all their finances in sync, centralize control of cash flow, and get in sync with the right financial professional at the right time.

Grow in new and empowering ways when you combine innovative software with unmatched services.

FINSYNC’s payments platform helps businesses centralize control of payments, automate accounting, process payroll, and manage cash flow, and connect with members of the FINSYNC Network for banking, financing, accounting and insurance needs.

In his most recent annual shareholder letter, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase’s Chairman and CEO, called out the fact that software companies becoming banks themselves is an enormous competitive threat to our industry.

The threat is not new or news. The bold terms, however, coming from the largest bank with presumably the largest software development budget, make it worth every other community financial institution taking notice and action.

At Strunk, we want to help you to act and within your own budget. This is why we are calling out a special vendor we have been following. FINSYNC is helping financial institutions of all sizes compete for commercial/business relationships and win. Their program is not only unique on that basis alone, but it requires no upfront investment or integration and can deliver a quick return on time.

  • No cost to you
  • Acquire more customers
  • Increase revenue
  • Improve retention

FINSYNC helps financial institutions counter the threat that is now Intuit’s QuickBooks becoming a bank, which is by itself an enormous competitive threat to the all-so-important relationships you have with your business customers.

According to Dan Roderick, Strunk CEO, “The FinTech threat facing our industry is all too real. In my 40 years in banking I’ve never seen anything that has created a risk of this magnitude. Strunk is in the unique position of being able to bring solutions to our clients that will help community FIs combat the FinTech challenge.”

If you have not already partnered with FINSYNC or considered their program, please be our guest. We see this as a huge value to all of our clients and so we’re sponsoring a series of webinars so that you can learn more. Simply click here to sign up for a session that suits your schedule.

For more detail on the FINSYNC product please click here or email us at info@strunkaccess.com.

For Clients: Account Details in ODP Manager

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In Strunk’s hosted ODP Manager Account Inquiry section, you are always able to review the account level data that is imported daily from your core extract file. Account Inquiry is also where ODP Manager retains the historical information about closed accounts.

Users are able to combine different column views, query groups, and filters to identify accounts that meet desired criteria. Once the list is compiled, it can be exported to Excel to be saved or for distribution. Users can use this ability to get account level detail to supplement ODP Manager’s existing standard reports.

In addition to allowing ad hoc lists of accounts, Account Inquiry will also allow you to access the information for a single account, whether the account is open or closed. You may need to review an account’s contact information, event history, reminders, or comments to manage the account. If the account is under a Fresh Start Loan or has charged off, you may need to view the related repayment schedule or charge-off items and recoveries.

Make it easier for users to access information, review, and manage ODP Manager accounts by utilizing the Account Inquiry feature. Please contact Strunk Support at support@strunkaccess.com with any questions or to find out more about Account Inquiry.

How does a CFI Compete with the BNPL Providers?

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The number of consumers who use a BNPL (Buy Now Pay Later) service has skyrocketed in the past 12 months. Consumers like these programs since they want simple monthly payments to give them the satisfaction of paying off a purchase rather than credit cards that can become “evergreen”. Unfortunately community financial institutions (CFIs) have missed out on this opportunity but it is not too late.

Millennials and Gen Z’s are an age group that is sought after by most financial institutions. Many of these people are scared of credit cards since they never seem to get them paid off. There are late payment penalties, high interest rates, and the minimum payment allows borrowers to pay off the balance in 15 years or more. Now there is a service you can provide.

Quilo is a turnkey service for financial institutions to provide small dollar consumer loans for purchases over $250. The high yield low touch loan program is not designed to cover everyday expenses like overdraft privilege programs do.

Your customer needs a new water heater or new tires. They have savings at your financial institution that they can use or they can use a credit card to pay for the expense. They don’t want to zap their savings for this unexpected expense and they don’t want to use their credit card with a high interest rate. Quilo provides a better alternative to either of these options.

Quilo loans are funded by your CFI and they offer a low rate, simple fixed payment, no prepayment penalty, and no late fees. Exactly what your customers want and need.

To learn more about Quilo please contact Strunk at info@strunkaccess.com or 800.728.3116 for quick demo of the Quilo Instant Installment Loan Program.

Do Business Accounts Have To Opt In To Reg E?

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Over the years Strunk has been asked a number of times, “do business accounts that have overdraft privilege have to opt into Reg. E to have their debit card point of sale and ATM transactions covered in the program?” To understand this you must first understand that most consumer protection rules do not apply to deposit accounts held by a business. It is also important to understand that a business-purpose account can be held by a legal entity, such as an LLC or a corporation, or by individuals operating a business themselves as a sole proprietorship.

We need to take a look at Regulation E and break it down regarding this topic. The coverage of Reg. E is stated in section 1005.3(a). It applies to “electronic fund transfers” that debit or credit a “consumer’s account.” Paragraph 1005.2(b) (1) defines an “account” as a consumer asset account established primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. Paragraph 1005.2(e) defines a “consumer” as a natural person. The result is if an individual is using their deposit account for the purposes of operation a sole proprietorship or an account is held by a legal entity, it would not be covered by Reg. E either.

Reg. E coverage means that the “opt-in” for overdraft coverage of debit card point of sale and ATM transactions only applies to consumer accounts. Any application of the concept to other accounts (such as business accounts) is a matter of bank policy and should be addressed in the bank’s deposit account agreement for such accounts.

Why has your Financial Institution missed out on Small Dollar Installment Lending?

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Community banks and credit unions have been shut out of the small dollar installment lending business due to the cost of taking an application, getting a credit bureau report, underwriting the loan, getting documents signed, funding and servicing the loan. Industry experts say that the cost to underwrite consumer loans typically runs $150 or more, with annual servicing cost running as high as $180 per year…doing it the ‘old school’ way.

Strunk has partnered with Quilo to provide a digital platform to make instant consumer loans for online or point of sale purchases. Large mega banks and FinTech companies have been offering these types of loans for several years and community financial institutions have been unable to keep pace. The Buy-Now-Pay-Later “BNPL” business is booming across the nation and Millennials, Gen X, and Gen Z’s are using the service…just not with your financial institution.  UNTIL NOW!

Quilo provides an opportunity for your institution to increase loans, net interest income, and offer an exciting service that consumers love, all from an app on their Smartphone. It allows consumers to make purchases and pay for them over a 3-24 month timeframe. It takes the stress out of lending…consumers don’t have to share their soul to borrow $500 and the financial institution doesn’t have to stress over telling them we don’t make small loans.

With tremendous growth potential in this segment of installment lending it doesn’t take long to show you how this would work for your financial institution. Take back the consumer lending business from the big banks and FinTech companies.

To learn more about Quilo contact Strunk at info@strunkaccess.com or 800.728.3116 for a quick demo of the Quilo Instant Installment Loan Program.

Conveniently Retain Report Copies

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Strunk’s hosted ODP Manager solution allows you to export and save your institution’s reports as Excel or PDF files. In addition to data from your most recent extract file, you are also able to access reports from your most recent seven As of Dates.

If you typically refer back to past reports for further analysis as you have time available, ODP Manager can streamline your report retention process. Instead of manually exporting and saving copies of reports, Strunk can set up your reports to be automatically archived after each import.

Once Strunk has created your report archive with your requested reports, PDFs are automatically saved within ODP Manager after each import of your daily extract file. Archived reports are easily located within a special Archived Reports section and are organized by As of Date.

Don’t worry about locating past reports – let Strunk manage your ODP Manager report archive! Please contact Strunk Support at support@strunkaccess.com with any questions or to find out more about using this feature.

Are you tired of doing Risk Assessments?

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We hear comments from community bankers across the country that they don’t like doing risk assessments and that they are time consuming. Risk Assessments generally come in the form of Excel Spreadsheets or Word documents. Often times they are done in silos where each functional area of the bank does their regulatory required risk assessment and periodically reports them to the bank’s board for review/approval.

Many banks do risk assessments for the regulators which is typically the wrong approach, in Strunk’s opinion. Risk assessments are done annually for those required by regulations and sometimes others are done two weeks before the regulators walk in. Risk Assessments should be designed to give senior management, board and ownership a snapshot of what risks your bank faces and what has been done to mitigate those risks. High risks aren’t bad; they just need to be managed.

Regulatory scrutiny of BSA/AML, ACH, Fair Lending, Loan Concentrations, Cybersecurity, Information Technology and other areas of the bank have caused financial institutions to spend more time and money focusing on the risks the bank faces. Outsourcing some of these functions to vendors is an expensive way to manage the risk assessment process and certainly unnecessary. Strunk’s GRC (Governance, Risk Management and Compliance) solution makes the risk assessment process easy to do and it consolidates all areas of risk the bank faces into one report.

Bank examiners often tell the community bank that they are coming out for the annual exam six weeks to two months prior to actually showing up. Generally, they ask the bank to send an extensive amount of information prior to coming onsite. This gives the regulator time to form their opinion on what risks the bank faces before arriving at the bank.

Strunk’s solution lets the bank tell their story rather than have the regulator tell the bank’s story to them. Comprehensive risk assessments are made easy with Strunk’s Risk Assessor Solution https://strunkaccess.com/risk-assessor/.

New Look & Feel: ODP Manager v2

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This month’s Strunk Access release introduces an all new look and feel for current ODP Manager clients. In an effort to continuously utilize the latest technology, Strunk stays on top of monthly updates that not only improve feature functionality but also application performance.

ODP Manager v2 consolidates Collection Letters, Custom Letters, and Ad Hoc Form Letters into a single menu option. When users click on Letters in the purple menu bar, they will now select either Collection Letters, Custom Letters, or Ad Hoc Form Letters from the menu. It is easier than ever before to generate letters once the proper menu item is chosen. Clients can also print a sample letter from the generation screen as needed.

These letter types can be used when creating templates to organize the different kinds of letters a client uses. Type Collection should be used for standard collection letters, type Custom will be chosen for all types of consumer communications and type Ad Hoc Form for letter types that need to be sent on demand.

Strunk CEO Dan Roderick says “I want clients to be able to stay on top of their programs and focus on what’s important to their organization. Strunk is committed to ensuring our applications are easy-to-use and continuously updated, to take that additional burden off their shoulders.”

ODP Manager is the most powerful tool available to help financial institutions get the most benefit out of their overdraft programs and remain in full compliance with the law. The application is provided as a cloud-hosted application, taking full advantage of the latest software developments and eliminating the need for users to maintain a separate application in their own network environment.

Help Your Customers Opt In for Regulation E Online

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ODP Manager includes letter templates that allow your customers the opportunity to opt in for Regulation E so they can authorize Overdraft Privilege service for ATM withdrawals and everyday debit card purchases. Did you know that ODP Manager can also help you offer your customers the option to opt in on your website?

Strunk can create a Reg E opt in form and Reg E opt out form that mirrors the content in your ODP Manager letters. You would then add links to these forms to your website.

When your customer submits the Consent Form for Overdraft Services or the Consent to Opt-Out, the opt in or opt out request is tracked in ODP Manager. The customer also is emailed a confirmation of their Reg E submission. Periodically, you review the new customer responses in ODP Manager and generate a list of the accounts that need the Reg E election updated. You perform the appropriate maintenance in your core software – updating the account record to either opt in or opt out the customer’s requested account. The ODP Manager software always shows you the most recent responses that you have not yet reviewed. The list of submissions is retained so you can look up past responses.

Let ODP Manager expand your options to allow your customers to choose Overdraft Privilege coverage for ATM and everyday debit card transactions. Please contact Strunk Support at support@strunkaccess.com with any questions or to find out more about using this feature.

An independent certified public accountant has examined Strunk’s operations and found them to be in compliance with the AICPA’s Trust Service Principles. It was determined that Strunk meets the Security, Availability, Processing Integrity, Confidentiality, and Privacy criteria for SOC 2 established by the AICPA.