A Fortune 500 provider of global procurement, payment and travel services, with 181 billion dollars in assets sought to reduce its total cost of ownership (TCO), associated with its front-end and back-end remittance processing, to just 80%. Managing an annual volume of more than 30 MM paper remittances in-house required significant investments in equipment, labor, system licenses, and PCI-compliance audits. To off-set some of these costs, the firm wanted to downsize and consolidate its in-house operations. The firm was also getting bogged down with multiple software licenses, in-house ACH clearing systems, and contracts that were due to expire.

The firm selected Exela as its primary out-source provider for its remittance processing operations. Currently, Exela processes an annual volume of more than 30MM payments for the firm. Outsourcing its remittance operations, including its manual keying and depository functions, provided the firm with a means of reducing its total ownership costs. The implementation encompassed a phased approach, beginning with front-end operations, and continuing with IT/back-end processes, including ACH clearing, quality assurance and depository functions. Working together with Exela, the firm completed a successful migration from its previous remittance platform, US Data Works, to Exela’s TMS system. The firm’s ACH engine, which was also expiring, was replaced with Exela’s solution.

Today, we provide the full spectrum of paper and electronic payment processing services including:

• Commercial and retail LockBox processing services
• Electronic LockBox services
• Remote remittance LockBox spoke

• Improved processing turn-around times, from 3 ½ days to 48 hours
• Decreased the firm’s total ownership costs by 20%
• Dedicated Relationship Management
• Continuous SLA Achievement: Payment post accuracy (99%); timeliness; duplicate payments; exceptions; decisions processing errors; misposts
• Continuous Improvement: Since partnering with Exela, this firm has benefited from several system upgrades; process improvements and service extensions.
• Risk Mitigation: By entrusting it’s auditing and compliance activities to an expert. the firm was able to reduce its risk of regulatory non-compliance

The bank was facing narrowing profit margins and a growing workforce dedicated to manual paper check processing. In order to combat rising costs and slow processing, they sought a partner that could introduce automation technology in order to streamline their remittance operations, while also helping them avoid a traditional BPO model, which would be culturally misaligned with their commitment to their existing workforce.

• More than 600 employees

• Growing costs

• Slow processing times

• Employee-centric culture

Exela provided a solution that retained and converted the existing onsite workforce and added the technology necessary to digitally transform their traditional onsite activities.

• Exela manages six bank locations across the U.S.

• Onsite technology upgrade, including state-of-the-art scanning equipment

• Integrated with Exela’s omni-channel payment processing platform

• Introduced process efficiencies and cost savings

• More than 170 million transactions are captured, digitized, and processed annually

• Guaranteed employee benefits and human capital continuity

• Optimized technology, including the future use of Intelliscan XDS

A leading midwestern bank had remittance processing operations spread across multiple bank-operated processing centers, using onsite software and hosting solutions that required costly maintenance and data synchronization procedures. Processing volumes were down and this made it difficult to justify the high costs of dispersed operations. Additionally, the bank was exposed to a high degree of risk in the event of a disaster, due to a recovery model that included the use of an unstaffed third-party site several states away.

Exela migrated the bank to a “hub-and-spoke” model, leveraging our cloud-based remittance processing platform, which includes proprietary scanning and data management systems. The platform is hosted and maintained by Exela at a secure, fully redundant processing center (hub). The bank was able to reduce its bank-operated sites down to one (spoke), which eliminated much of the bank’s overhead and its management burden related to remittance processing. The flexibility inherent to this operating model, and the associated transaction-based pricing, allows for Exela-processed volumes to ramp up and down as needed.

Implementing the hub-and-spoke model also allowed for a small percentage of remittance volume to be processed in a shared-services environment at an Exela site that is regionally separated from the bank’s site, but close enough for efficient reshipment of mail in the event of a disaster. During such an event, total processing volume can be immediately absorbed by Exela’s operation, which better protects business continuity and enables the bank to reduce expenses associated with maintaining its own systems and its costly third-party site.

• Flexible operations with easy ramp up and down, depending on volume
• Reduced maintenance and management burdens
• Increased processing speed and accuracy
• Lower total costs of ownership
• Superior disaster recovery capabilities

<p>One of the largest financial institutions in the U.S. had been handling its own remittance processing—requiring more than 600 dedicated employees across six locations to process more than 170 million transactions annually. Despite a strong commitment to their workforce, market realities and financial pressures had forced them to consider resource allocation, including the possible divestiture of peripheral processes (such as remittance). Seeking insight and ideas at this critical juncture, they turned to Exela, which had already been providing them with services for more than 25 years. In fact, Exela already had 432 employees working at the institution’s various locations, engaged in the processing of the institution’s business, including mail and print operations.</p>
 

Exela offered to take ownership of the financial institution’s full array of remittance processing operations, including the employment of the more than 600 employees involved in those operations, while bringing to bear Exela’s state-of-the-art payment and processing solutions. The financial institution made the wise choice to leverage Exela’s proven experience and expertise in executing large, onsite remittance operations along with its versatile service-delivery model, technologically-advanced applications, and commitment to the career continuity career continuity and employee benefits.

Specifically, the scope of agreement between Exela and the financial institution includes:

• Lockbox Processing - Exela is charged with overseeing and executing all aspects of the firm’s Lockbox operations across six locations, utilizing existing facilities and equipment.
• Data Management - Exela manages mail retrieval, image and data capture, archival, delivery, remittance, and the secure transfer of customer information in compliance with applicable privacy and other laws.
• Transfer and Transition of Employees - Of the 645 employees offered employment by Exela, 98% accepted, and turnover has been low (averaging around 3%). This can be attributed, at least in part, to Exela’s commitment to keeping the employees “whole” by maintaining their salary, bridging their years of service, and providing peerto- peer support and other rebadging-related transition services.

As of the first 9 months of 2019, the institution had already realized $318,000 in savings (representing nearly $40,000 per month in savings). The partnership has been positive and profitable, with virtually all performance goals achieved.

$318,000

in savings realized

$40,000

per month in savings

98%

of performance goals achieved