The Dawn of a New Day
Launched officially in the United States on February 2007 through Axcess Americas and here in Canada in September 2007 through Axcess Canada, ARMnet Integrated Banking Software is a “New to North America” financial product management solution. Built on a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) foundation, ARMnet provides unprecedented Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) for Business Process Management (BPM). The system is designed to support a wide variety of products including:

• Deposit or Wealth Management Products,
• Loan or Mortgage Origination Products,
• Loan or Mortgage Administration and Special Servicing
• Secondary Credit Underwriting Solutions for Credit or Debit/Stored Value Cards
• Equipment or Vehicle Fleet Leasing Solutions
• Payday Loan or Cash Advance Products
• Microfinance Loan Products

ARMnet offers unique options in managing credit/risk underwriting workflow. Created in Australia over 10+ years ago by Axcess Consulting Group Pty. Ltd., this solution has captured over 45% of the Austalian market including companies like:

• AMAL Asset Management Limited: AMAL (Australian Mortgage Administration Limited) Asset Management Limited is an $A8.5 Billion loan servicing company that represents the mortgage brokerage community in Australia and New Zealand. The portfolio managed includes $A6.5 Billion in commercial mortgages with the balance in Residential Mortgages, Operating Leases and Loans. They are currently the leading third party servicing platform in the region representing over 30 financial services organizations. With a deliberate strategy not to be involved in the origination, legal review or custody of receivables, their sole focus is on providing clients with the most efficient and cost-effective servicing solutions available. AMAL has offices in Sydney and Auckland and relationships with a number of groups throughout the Asia Pacific. AMAL is also in its 12th year of accreditation under the ISO 9001:9002 Quality Management Program and has been ranked 'Above Average' by Standard and Poor's as a loan servicer for the past three years.
• Accor Vacation Club Properties (AVCP): Accor Vacation Club is one of Australia and New Zealand's leading holiday ownership systems. The Club's operator is part of the Accor Hospitality Group, the largest hotel group in the Asia Pacific region with operations across 16 countries, covering a full spectrum of locations and hotel styles, from luxury to budget.
• Bluestone Financial: Bluestone is a leading financial services business established in Australia in 2000. The group has successfully expanded to New Zealand (2003) and Europe (U.K.)(2009). Bluestone is owned by a number of leading institutional investors including Bank Of Scotland International, Crescent Capital Partners, ABN AMRO and Barclays Bank Plc. The Group operates two core divisions; Bluestone Servicing and Bluestone Capital Management
  Bluestone Servicing currently oversees the management of $A2.0bn in assets, including the Emerald and Sapphire securitisation programs, and is the only third party servicer in both Australia and New Zealand to be independently evaluated by both Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings. Bluestone Servicing offers a range of portfolio management services to third parties, such as Banks, Bond Investors, Trustees and Administrators, including:
  • Core servicing (Customer & Loan administration)
  • Special Servicing (Collections and Arrears Management)
  • Standby or Backup Servicing
  • Trust Management (Cash & Bond Administration)
  A Key driver to engaging Bluestone is a requirement from funders to protect and enhance the performance of underlying asset portfolios. Using ARMnet Bluestone Servicing has developed a contemporary technology platform that allows multiple portfolios and asset classes to be managed on a single platform, enabling seamless and accurate migration of portfolios from third party systems. Currently the system is managing Residential, Reverse and Commercial Mortgages, Auto-loans and personal unsecured loans.
  Bluestone Capital Management acquires and manages finance receivables portfolios in partnership with third party capital investors. Bluestone Capital Management on behalf of institutional and retail investment draws on its extensive management experience in credit analysis, financing and management of receivable portfolios in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
• Challenger International Pty Ltd: Challenger is one of Australia's largest non-bank lenders with a mortgage book of $A19.8 billion^, funding commercial loans as well as a range of residential mortgage products offered by a network of preferred lenders under their own brands. The company's more recent acquisition of interests in the distribution and aggregation segment of the market have made it one of the largest mortgage industry participants, with a network of 5,500 brokers and more than $A71 billion^ in mortgages under administration.
• Classic Holidays Club: Classic Holidays Club manages resorts/clubs in Australia's favourite holiday destinations: Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Coral Coast, NSW Mid North Coast, The Murray Region and Victoria High Country, with access access to many more time share properties throughout Australia, New Zealand and the world.
• Dunn & Bradstreet Australasia: Dunn & Bradstreet Australia operates today under the name D&B Australasia (DBA). DBA currently employs over 500 professionals in Australia and New Zealand (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide & Auckland). DBA is market leader in the credit information and debt management services sector in Australia and New Zealand.
• GMAC RFC Australia Pty Ltd: The financial lending arm in Australia of General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC), one of the largest non-traditional lending corporations in the world.
• ING Mortgage Funds: The Axcess system manages a $500 million mortgage portfolio for ING Mortgage Funds part of ING Australia.
• Pepper Home Loans Pty Ltd: Launched to the Australian mortgage market in 2001, Pepper Homeloans has grown to become one of Australia’s leading specialist lenders and mortgage servicers providing loan servicing and specialty servicing capabilities. Pepper has total loans under management of approximately A$1.5 billion.
• Perpetual Corporate Trust: As one of the most trusted providers of financial products and services in Australia, Perpetual has long been recognised for initiative, integrity, security and vision. Perpetual Limited (Perpetual) is an ASX Top 200 company (ASX: PPT) with a market capitalisation of some A$3.2 billion. Funds under management as at 30 June 2007 was A$39.1 billion and funds under administration was A$210.1 billion.
• Westpac New Zealand: New Zealand’s largest bank uses ARMnet to interface the Westpac EFT Processing System with Westpac clients.

Given changes in the credit environment globally the ability to be able to manage, create and modify loan origination criteria in a timely manner without ANY programmer intervention is a significant and welcome change to the marketplace.

With respect to the solution itself there are six key aspects which make this a Best of Breed solution worthy of serious consideration.

• The solution is designed around Customer Relationship Management (CRM) architecture so that once implemented, all electronic data becomes completely client centric, including documents and email communications through its complete integration with the Microsoft Office Suite. This eliminates duplication in keying contact data into multiple applications and creates for a more responsive environment to manage customer enquiries.
  
  
• The loan origination workflow within ARMnet Integrated Banking Software allows the client to use Business Analyst expertise to map and manage credit decisioning or risk decisioning criteria in an intuitive manner that ELIMINATES the need for programmer intervention to make hard coded changes to the database. This therefore allows changes due to market conditions, product development to be tested and implemented in a much shorter time frame dramatically improving ROI to the financial institution in lowering costs to update or add new criteria.
  
  
• Data access in the system is totally permission based within a securely encrypted database allowing for unlimited access options for users.
  
  
• Data fragmentation in different systems has limited reporting capabilities for many firms. With compliance needs and demands like the Basel 2 Accord, institutions need to be able to create generate reports in a timely manner that can provide federal regulators, shareholders, or the internal management team with data they need to manage their customer base profitably. Reports can be internally mapped and generated or externally ported to solutions like Microsoft Excel or Crystal Reports.
  
  
• ARMnet Integrated Banking Software is built on Microsoft .NET Framework. This allows us to integrate with any external third party database using standard Internet protocols such as XML SOAP, Web Services Description Language (WSDL), and Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI). Tied to this are the applications support of the Lending Industry XML Interface(LIXI) an independent industry organisation established to utilise new technologies for the removal of barriers to data exchange within the Australian lending industry. Through LIXI it is intended that member organisations will be able to provide better and faster services to their customers at lower cost. This is achieved through establishing a platform independent open standard for the format and exchange of lending-related data to replace numerous incompatible and proprietary approaches. ARMnet Integrated Banking Software is also MISMO (Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization) compliant.
  
  
• The "Smart Client" structure of ARMnet Integrated Banking Software allows remote users (i.e. mobile mortgage brokers or wealth managers) to work online or offline in a totally permission based environment accessing all the documentation, electronic communications and data to support a customer’s needs in a very intuitive structure.

ARMnet Financial Product Management Solutions –
“Tomorrow’s Financial Product Management Solutions, Here Today.”

© 2010 Axcess Canada Inc.