Liberty Bank
Case Study
Who: Middletown, Conn.-based Liberty Bank, a $3.6 billion dollar-asset mutual bank serving more than 195,000 customers throughout the central, eastern and shoreline areas of Connecticut.
Kathy Doucette, Treasurer and First Vice President of Finance for Liberty Bank, Brenda Byers-Britney, Retail Branch Operations Specialist for Liberty Bank and
Cindy Muzyk, Budget Manager for Liberty Bank.
When: Liberty Bank utilized logicpath's Deposit Reclassification solution for 13 years prior to implementing its C3 Financial software to address branch cash management challenges at its 44 branches and 30 branch-serviced ATMs. Since implementation, Liberty Bank has added five branches and four ATMs; a cash footprint of 49 branches and 34 branch-serviced ATMs that C3 Financial completely manages.
What: branch cash management challenges at Liberty Bank’s branches led the team to pursue a solution that would provide the cash reporting capabilities branch managers needed to analyze average cash balances and compare them to cash limits. The more than a decade-long successful relationship Liberty Bank had with logicpath led the staff to implement the company’s industry-leading C3 Financial solution to reduce the amount of cash on-hand at its branches and better identify cash positions.
Liberty Bank required an institution-wide and standardized branch cash management solution that eliminated branch managers’ disparate and time-consuming processes for tracking and reporting the bank’s cash, which also included manual production of monthly branch cash limit reports from the Finance area.
“In the past, our branch managers used monthly reports to compare average cash balances with branch-set limits,” said Kathy Doucette, Treasurer and First Vice President of Finance for Liberty Bank. “However, lack of available data from our core system made it extremely difficult for branch managers to understand the overall monthly cash limit.”
While Liberty Bank’s previous branch cash management reporting capabilities enabled branch personnel to view cash averages, insufficient information was available on the reports that enabled management to identify and set specific cash limits.
“Our branches had a surplus of cash, but we were not necessarily utilizing it in the most efficient manner to meet our customers’ needs,” said Brenda Byers-Britney, Retail Branch Operations Specialist for Liberty Bank. “A few branches had more inflow than outflow, and vice versa, but the branches were unable to monitor cash levels on a daily basis.”
Already a longtime logicpath Deposit Reclassification client, Liberty Bank was aware of logicpath's C3 Financial solution, a web-based branch, ATM and vault branch cash management software. According to Doucette, the bank knew the solution would enable its branches to overcome cash limit and reporting challenges.
“Shortly after we received our first direct mail piece about the solution, we began comparing C3 Financial to other branch cash management solutions, but ultimately, the software’s ease of use and CetoLogic’s commitment to community banks, led us to further our relationship with logicpath and implement C3 Financial,” said Doucette. “C3 Financial’s ability to pull information from our core system – Insight – and the internal efficiencies it created for our branches made the selection an easy one.”
The implementation of C3 Financial was a team effort, and according to Doucette and Byers-Britney, the finance and retail banking operations groups of Liberty Bank were heavily involved.
“The implementation process was extremely quick overall,” said Byers-Britney. “We assembled Liberty Bank branch managers and service supervisors with the logicpath customer support team to ensure all processes were accurate and that we were taking advantage of all the features C3 Financial offered. The specificity of implementing C3 Financial required the retail group to be involved so they could see first-hand how the solution would streamline the branches’ manual responsibilities.”
According to Doucette, C3 Financial has enabled Liberty Bank personnel to reduce the amount of cash on-hand at branches and also trained branch staff to be more comfortable with less cash. The bank is now able to deploy the recovered funds into additional investment and community revenue-generating opportunities. From implementation, 48 branches utilizing C3 Financial experienced a 42 percent reduction in cash inventory, equating to the transformation of $2.0 million in liquid assets for the bank.
“Since implementation, we have seen more than $2 million in cash reductions at our branches across the state of Connecticut; that was our immediate goal when we chose to implement C3 Financial,” said Doucette. “The solution also created other efficiencies for us including a simple cash limit monthly report that our Finance group is able to send to all of our branches and the retail group in less than five minutes; whereas before we had a very time consuming process of pulling the data from multiple sources and then manually compiling the report.”
Another C3 Financial feature Liberty Bank utilizes is Target recommendations; a monthly average cash ending for cash limits. Liberty Bank’s retail group successfully manages branch cash within one percent of C3 Financial’s Target recommendations; maintaining and aligning cash inventory levels with customer usage and creating permanent liquid assets for the bank. C3 Financial’s reporting capabilities have also enabled Liberty Bank branches to streamline the tedious, manual processes that were in place and better meet their specific branch needs.
“The generated reports within C3 Financial enable the retail banking operations group to clearly see where branches are in terms of their cash limit,” said Doucette. “Branches are now working within a target balance, and if they need to make a little adjustment within the solution, C3 Financial’s requisition features allow them to do so.”
The integration between C3 Financial and Liberty Bank’s core provider, COCC, complemented by responsive and accessible support from the logicpath team, have made once laborious branch cash management tasks extremely efficient.
“The core integration with C3 Financial has put us in a very good position to easily access data right from our core and import it into C3 Financial on a daily basis,” said Doucette. “This streamlined process, and constant support from logicpath, has significantly reduced our time spent on branch cash management procedures; allowing us to spend more time with our customers and enhancing their experience with Liberty Bank.”
Established in 1825, Liberty Bank is Connecticut’s oldest mutual bank, with more than $3.6 billion in assets and 49 banking offices throughout the central, eastern and shoreline areas of the state. As a full-service financial institution, Liberty offers consumer and commercial banking, home mortgages, insurance, and investment services. Liberty maintains a longstanding commitment to superior personal service and unparalleled community involvement.
Atlanta, Ga.-based logicpath provides software solutions and analytics to financial institutions and retail organizations. logicpath proudly services the needs of more than 1,500 clients in 50 states and Canada by providing “Smart Solutions that Make Dollars and Sense.” logicpath is the designer of C3 Financial, a web-based cash forecasting and management software. logicpath also pioneered Deposit Reclassification, a retail sweep program designed to eliminate reserve balances. logicpath's pALMs is a web-based asset/liability management simulation software that provides accurate and detailed analysis asset-by-asset and liability-by-liability. These solutions improve earnings, efficiencies, risk management and operations.