The Financial Services Blog

Most Financial Services companies are studying their impact on the environmnet and looking for ways to improve the sustainability of their business.  Last December the American Banker wrote aboout how financial institutions can make green from being green.  Cutting out waste and reducing power consumption can keep costs down and helping to improve the environment can improve good will amongst your customers.

Now there is a new tool to help companies measure the impact that their office is having on the environment.  Called the sustainability calculator it evaluates the office devices such as printers, copiers and multifunction devices and then identifies possible reduction of energy use, paper and solid waste etc.

It’s even more interesting to listen to a thought leader on the environment talk about how you can help make your business more sustainable.

I was reading an article written by a colleague of mine, Judson Phillips, vice president of marketing for Xerox Mortgage Services and he describes how financial services companies, particularly mortgage companies, are increasingly looking to cut costs by buying software and other technology as a service.  He wrote

 ”As the mortgage industry remains in a state of flux, mortgage lenders are turning to on-demand or software-as-a-service applications as a way to quickly upgrade, replace or enhance current technology and support variable cost models.  These applications are flexible and scalable and provide many benefits, such as, faster Return on Investment, elimination of long implementation cycles and quick deployment which lower overhead costs.  

The ability to leverage an on-demand application across a company enables collaboration, improves loan processing times and increases efficiency.  On-demand pay-as-you-go also enables lenders to engage in new technology initiatives via a variable-cost model to control their cost structure and support highly fluctuating volumes to weather a the storm. For example, many lenders are rapidly moving to paperless processing, turning paper loan folders into electronic loan files, eliminating millions of sheets of paper, reducing storage, printing and shipping costs.“   

I completely agree with Judson that it’s a great strategy for mortgage companies to buy their technology this way as it turns a fixed cost into a variable cost and that greatly improves their ability to handle the fluctuations in mortgage application volume.  Please let us have your comments, or take a more detailed look at Xerox Mortgage Services.