Nov. 30, 2006

When people go to a bank or financial institution, they expect secure and rapid transactions, no matter how large or small the bank is. Which means online banking, account updates across ATMs, Internet and branch transactions, check clearing services, etc.

However, not all banks are created equal. Some (many in fact) aren't equipped with the in-house IT expertise to handle such critical initiatives.

That's where the COCC, a bank data processing service founded in 1967, tries to improves things. The COCC has about 140 clients, mainly small and medium-sized banks in the Northeastern U.S. that need the help of an outside IT partner to keep their eBusiness expertise up to par.

"On any given day, the COCC supports about 7,000 workstations in 565 offices throughout the region," says Robert Bessel, Director of PR for COCC. "We process over 3 million accounts. If it has anything to do with a computer and it's in a bank, we take care of it."

That's good for the banks, who can stick to core competencies and let COCC take care of their back ends. A recent example of the value added comes in the realm of financial applications and bank transaction processing systems. Whenever banks route a transaction, they have to update their general ledger every time. But a lot of smaller banks can't afford the cost or complexity of maintaining an enterprise-class financials system in house.

That's where COCC comes in. The company has recently contracted with Oracle to be able to offer Oracle financials as a value-added service to customers.

The actual instances of Oracle are hosted by COCC, and bank customers get access to the applications via the subscription fees they pay to COCC. "It isn't transaction-based," emphasizes Brent Biernat, Director of Network Services, COCC. "Customers pay monthly towards their contracts."

These contracts are flexible enough to allow banks access to a financials system of their choice, but most have already decided what they need and want. To date, 83 of COCC's 137 customers have chosen to go with Oracle, and that's in the short time that the product has been available as a COCC service. "Basically, we show it to customers, and they buy it," says Biernat.

Bessel explains why: "as a whole, all transactions -- deposits, withdrawals, service charges, earnings credits, ATM transactions, debit cards -- are systematically reflected in the general ledger. Also, customers see the Excel front end on this powerful Oracle financials database and they really like it." Bessel is here referring to a desktop integrator that lets bankers update and query the Oracle database using the Microsoft Excel front end that is already so popular in financial services.

All in all, COCC says that being able to offer Oracle's financials package, as well as other applications and infrastructure, fits in well with its customers' desire to stay out of the IT game. "Bank of America has its own data center," concludes Biernat. "In our model, we're the data center for small banks."

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