Success Stories

Johnson Bank

Working Smarter with Centralized, Configurable Collection Software

Racine-WI, USA

At a Glance

● Increases the speed of cash flows

● Saving a lot of time and heartburn by bringing lots of efficiency to its calling campaigns

● Ability to have instant access to all of its client’s accounts

Johnson Bank’s collection platforms and service of record did not communicate with each other. Because the out-of-the-box solution the bank was using could not be customized, Johnson’s team had to track loss mitigation, foreclosure, and bankruptcy using spreadsheets. With no real-time refresh option, payments would not appear in the collections environment, and the team had to complete eight steps before they could make a phone call. With $4.7 billion in assets, Johnson needed a better solution to serve its customers. Several factors that led to Johnson selecting Temenos were the configurability of the platform, the workflow capabilities, and the number of satisfied Temenos customers who were already using the product. “Many other software vendors were just getting into the workflow process or they just did foreclosure and bankruptcy but not collections,” says Louis Burg, VP of the Consumer Assets Group and Mortgage Quality Assurance at Johnson Bank. “Nobody did everything well.”

Creating High-Impact Efficiency

Johnson used the Temenos Collection module to streamline its processes. “Six clicks and it’s to the printer,” says Christine Pfeiffer, who focuses on loss mitigation in Johnson’s Consumer Special Assets Group. “The workflows take my team through the process. We’ve built it so it’s procedural-based. No more need for checklists and no more second-guessing yourself.”

Burg says Johnson was able to create an expected payment model for collections, which the team uses to set up their queues for each day. “The Temenos software allowed us to import that file and use the values in it to set up day queues on an automated basis,” he says. “That saved us a lot of time and heartburn, and it brought a lot of efficiency to our calling campaigns.”

Pfieffer says her team has eliminated all of the pre-call work they used to do, like visiting several spreadsheets or other manually updated documents. “It’s all holistically in one place for us to see,” she says. “The biggest piece is the ability to see every account a client has with us at a glance, right on the screen. You pull them up, and it’s all there. There’s no toggling between accounts or going to another service of record platform to try to find more information. Anybody can go in, pull up a customer, and it’s all right there. That has been a huge asset.”

Another added benefit is that a backup employee who isn’t familiar with the process can jump in at any point in time. Pfieffer says it has been a phenomenal tool for cross-training and keeping her team in sync with each other.

Burg says the efficiency of the system has enabled Johnson’s team to touch customers earlier in the default cycle, which has enabled the bank to increase the speed of cash flows.  “It’s helped us prioritize our accounts for calling,” Pfieffer says.

Pfieffer says the Temenos collection even made a recent Freddie Mac audit easier. “I was able to take them through the processes in Temenos,” she says. “It’s built in a way where it’s just all laid out right there for them. So the audit went phenomenally—Freddie Mac loved it!”

Smooth Implementation

Burg says the Temenos Collection was the easiest implementation Johnson Bank has ever had. Burg attributes this success to the Temenos support and implementation teams. “They were really good resources, and they were dedicated to helping us succeed,” Burg says.