ONEUNITED BANK REOPENS IN RECORD TIME FOLLOWING HURRICANE WILMA

MIAMI, Florida, November 9, 2005 – America’s largest minority-owned bank opened its doors only four days after Hurricane Wilma tore through Miami. The bank credits its rapid recovery to its infrastructure, the responsiveness of its service provider, and the extraordinary efforts of its employees.

“It was most gratifying to see a line of very relieved account holders on the morning we re-opened,” said OneUnted Bank’s Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, James Barry, Jr. “They needed money for food, water and other necessities. We were glad to be there for them.” 

Wilma, the eighth hurricane to affect Florida in 15 months, came ashore October 24 as a category 3 storm, knocking out electricity to 3.3 million people as it cut across the peninsula. While the power company was able to restore service to 2.4 million people by Halloween, OneUnited got its branches back even faster as a result of sophisticated logistics and heroic efforts by its staff.

The bank shipped an electric generator to Orlando in mid-Florida, then flew in OneUnited’s Vice President – Information Technology, Jim Slocum. He rented a car and drove the generator to Miami where he powered up the bank’s computers and re-connected to its central store of functions and information, located at COCC, a banking technology service in Avon, Connecticut.

“The vast majority of our competition was still struggling to reopen,” said Slocum. “Located in the underserved community which is often among the last to see their power restored, OneUnited’s infrastructure put us among the first.”

OneUnited Bank serves residents of Boston and Los Angeles as well as South Florida, giving it a unique service footprint and equally unique technology challenge without extraordinary events such as Hurricane Wilma. “We operate in three different regions and two different time zones,” said Slocum. “We’re not your typical bank!”

Barry added that the bank partnered with COCC to build an infrastructure with the goal of providing a unified desktop regardless of location. “Our technology is organized so that we can plug into an encrypted network and resume processing, making us extremely agile in the marketplace and in crisis situations like this,” he said.

Barry and Slocum worked with COCC engineers to establish a secure Internet Protocol based telephone and database system that’s easy to install and recover in times of need. The bank’s database and network servers are located at COCC’s secure facilities in Connecticut, far from recent trouble spots and fully backed-up in case of further disaster. To reconnect the stricken branch to the bank, it simply plugged into the encrypted network and signed on.

“We are pleased to see our partnership with OneUnited Bank serve as a major factor in the bank’s rapid recovery of service to its customers,” said COCC’s First Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Joseph Lockwood. “Technology is more than hardware and software; it’s people working together to apply technology for success in real world situations.”