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05/16/05 - In a business world where speed, accuracy, and efficiency are critical components of success, The Aimbridge Lending Group’s system integration solution, PowerBridge™, is providing just the right solution at just the right time.

Over the past 12 months, Aimbridge® has begun the rollout of its lending system interface to both credit union and dealership partners. PowerBridge is a technology solution that allows Aimbridge to upload or download application and loan data from the Aimbridge lending system, known as AimbridgeConnect™, into its customer’s host systems.

Aimbridge initially built PowerBridge as a way to assist credit union partners with the automated booking of loans into the credit union’s core processing system. Using PowerBridge, credit unions no longer need to spend the time re-keying loan application and contract data into their core processing system to get the loan booked.

PowerBridge is currently used by credit unions for everything from real time membership verification to creating brand new member accounts in the CU’s core systems. As applications are submitted to Aimbridge from the dealership via AppLine™, the Aimbridge online application tool, PowerBridge will check to see whether or not the applicant is a member of a credit union on the Aimbridge program. If membership is verified, PowerBridge will pass back name, address, and member status information to pre-populate AppLine’s application screens. If membership is not found, AppLine will walk the dealership through the process of determining whether or not the applicant can become a member of a local area credit union.

Once a loan has made it through Aimbridge’s custom decision engines and workflow routing processes and the loan has been approved, the loan can be booked on the credit union’s system at the click of a button.

“With this type of connectivity in place, the sky’s the limit in terms of what we can accomplish in the name of productivity and efficiency. Everything from quicker, more accurate loan booking and processing, to deeper credit decisioning and reporting, to the ability to research member accounts and provide cross-selling opportunities, become realities with PowerBridge,” says David Lindsey, Vice President of Technology at Aimbridge.

Aimbridge is currently in the process of working with one of its credit union partners to implement a “deeper decisioning” module using PowerBridge. Deeper decisioning would allow Aimbridge’s powerful custom decision engine to leverage the account information and member history on the credit union’s core system to make a more informed credit decision and dramatically increase the percentage of loans that can be auto-decisioned.

In addition, access to real-time member account information would allow Aimbridge to present its credit unions with critical data about what additional products their members may qualify for. “Using PowerBridge, we have the ability to determine if a credit union member is a candidate for another CU loan product as they are applying for an auto loan. For example, we know, based on their credit report whether or not the member holds a first mortgage.  If so, this allows the credit union to pre-qualify the member for a home equity loan if one is not already in place. Credit unions have shown a lot of interest in using this tool to get their credit union credit cards into their members’ hands,” says Lindsey.

On the point-of-sale side of the indirect lending business, Aimbridge has recently rolled out a PowerBridge solution for the automotive dealerships. Using PowerBridge, the dealership can automatically populate Aimbridge’s online application tool, AppLine, with data already housed in the dealership’s Dealer Management System (DMS).

This process is designed to assist dealers to be more productive as they will only have to key application information into their systems one time. Once a dealership has a PowerBridge connection in place, they will never have to key information twice to get their applications to the credit union.

In much the same way that PowerBridge opens up a wide array of options to the credit unions, PowerBridge for dealerships opens up the possibility of online forms population, e-contracting, and e-signatures.

“In the past few years, the automotive dealership market has really awakened to the power of today’s technology. Aimbridge believes that the only way for lenders to continue to compete in this industry is to provide dealers with the best and most efficient lending tools and processes. We believe PowerBridge does just that,” says Lindsey when asked about the dealership side of PowerBridge.

“It is our goal to continue plugging the manual, time-intensive holes in the lending process by adding to our proprietary lending solutions with the best connectivity options available. With PowerBridge, we are able to begin to tie these systems together from the point of sale to the lender.”

PowerBridge is built on the latest Microsoft technologies and takes advantage of 128 bit SSL key encryption standards. PowerBridge is a Microsoft .NET application using Web Services. By using Web Services, there is no need for large software installs or downloads to get up and running. For most solutions, a small “plug-in” is needed to make the connection and begin to pass data.

About Aimbridge:

Founded in 1984, Aimbridge markets financial products, such as auto loans, mortgages and insurance products through partnerships with credit unions. The company helps its partners attract members and deepen their relationships by providing members with more reasons to do business with their credit unions.

Aimbridge Lending is comprised of four divisions, including Aimbridge Indirect Lending, Aimbridge Home Loans, Aimbridge Financial Services and Aimbridge Disposition Services.  The company is headquartered in Denver and has remote offices throughout the United States.