Client Success Stories

Oracle Financials Brings Holding Company Together

When Litchfield Bancorp and Northwest Community Bank formed a mutual holding company in 2001, a key operating concept was independence. “We wanted to build on the strengths of our two organizations while maintaining our separate identities,” said Leslieanne Black, Senior Vice President and CFO at Litchfield Bancorp.

That meant consolidating both companies’ financials but also preserving separate budgets, balance sheets and reporting. It also meant sharing staff from each bank’s accounting departments and delivering information that both companies needed at the speed their businesses required. The holding company’s solution was Oracle Financials delivered as an ASP solution by COCC.

“COCC’s ASP version of Oracle Financials gives us much more automation and vastly improves our ability to research,” said Ms. Black. “The system handles our two banks and their subsidiaries with ease, and gives us the tools we need to access and distribute financial information.”

The Oracle system stores all transactions in a single database, enabling the banks and their holding company to research and report exactly what they need. “We can produce reports any way we like and schedule them to print wherever they’re needed in our two organizations,” said Ms. Black. “It saves time over printing the reports in accounting and then faxing them out to the other areas.”

COCC’s Customer Service Manager, Matt L’Heureux, added that COCC takes maximum advantage of Oracle’s integration with the core processing system which is also based on Oracle.

“Because both banks use COCC for their core processing functions, we’re able to do a lot more,” said L’Heureux. “We can reconcile totals from the banks’ general ledgers and the loan and deposit systems. Our communications network and online access to reports enables the banks to grant other departments access to reports even if they don’t have actual on-line access to General Ledger itself.”

The COCC network also enables staff members to perform specialized accounting functions for both banks without leaving their desks. “We can take advantage of a staff member’s expertise without losing time to the drive between the two banks,” said Ms. Black.

Overall, Ms. Black said Oracle Financials has helped place the two banks on the same technology level, smoothing holding company operations and saving time for both organizations. “The system easily accommodates the banks’ subsidiaries,” she said. “It’s built to handle any multi-bank organization.”

“COCC’s ASP product also simplifies the product since COCC does the upgrades, the fixes, the training and the support which is critical to getting the most out of the system,” said Ms. Black. “It’s a great way to go.”