By Art Gillis
http://www.artgillis.com

If someone paid me $7 million, plus or minus a million, to create a new bank core system for community banks, the first thing I would do is fly to Kansas City. That’s sort of a private matter, but my mission would be to assign all the bread and butter applications to a man I believe has four very rare skills:

(1) The essence of what it takes to manage a bank for peak performance, service, safety and profitability;
(2) The ability to transfer more human tasks to system tasks;
(3) The ability to harness technology to work at the level of human capacities, and;
(4) The ability to deliver a product on time and within budget with no excuses. Dreamer you say? He has done it four times.

The next thing I would do is take 30 days off to design one report for our new system. Here's what that report might look like. First, it would not be printed on green bar paper. It would be displayed on the CEO's PC screen (and mobile device) that are never turned off. It would also be printed on his/her laser printer in red. And the PC would be equipped with an irritating beeper that would turn off only after actions were taken. Clearly, I haven't figured out all the details, but you get my drift. Here's an early look in case you want to help me:

Dear Boss,

Last night's posting and updating run detected suspects that could put the bank at risk to the tune of one half of one percent of the bank's total assets (the system would calculate the actual risk). Each of your responsible department heads should be scrambling right now in preparation for your call. But you know three (variable) of them are out of the bank today, so you're the man.

1. Six items are now in the Suspense Account that are ten days old and have not been resolved.
2. Eighteen overdrafts from customers that are less than a year old have not been contacted.
3. Twenty-three accounts have been closed without explanation.
4. Eighty-four loan payments are now 10 days late. One hundred twelve are five days late.
5. Only three new accounts were opened yesterday. The norm is 8.
6. The Call Center received 345 calls in the past 24 hours, which is 80% higher than the norm.
7. Six employees did not report for work yesterday.
8. You received 37 e-mails yesterday, but 28 look like Spam.
9. You received 14 voice mails yesterday that have not been disposed of.
10. Subprime mortgage loans continue to increase foreclosures, but there are none in our bank's mortgage portfolio.
11. 13% of the mortgage loans have moved from due-date payments to grace-period payments.
12. Core deposits decreased again this month.
13. Although the number of items on the kite suspect list is steady, real kiting has increased by 1.8%.
14. 87 inquiries were posted on our Web site yesterday. 23 were answered.
15. The Investment Portfolio System is showing a steady increase in the purchase of our stock by a local regional bank.
16. Four large cash deposits were taken at the South Side Branch yesterday. The norm for this branch is zero.
17. Your wife called you three times this morning. Our analog to digital converter detected key words such as, fire, smoke, 911, and your study.

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