Crestar Bank's in Top Form
by Greg Taggart

Crestar Bank has the heart of a community bank heart and the resources of a big bank. A unit of $26.1 billion Crestar Financial Corporation, Crestar branches sit on over 377 community corners in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC. If you can't find a full service branch nearby, you can always visit one of more than 660 ATM locations. Crestar is not just another huge financial conglomerate. It takes its community commitment seriously. In fact, the U.S. Treasury Department recently presented Crestar with a Bank Enterprise Act award, making it one of only 55 financial institutions nationwide to be recognized for increasing their investment in underserved neighborhoods. Crestar's investment in those neighborhoods took the form of deposit services, loans, and funding for affordable housing and commercial revitalization projects.

Crestar is the largest Virginia-based banking organization and targets virtually every consumer and business financial need in its market. With over $6.3 billion in consumer loans and another $6 billion in loans to all sizes of businesses, Crestar works hard to stand out as the convenient place to bank for exceptional service and outstanding value. And its message is being heard. More than 72,000 small businesses look to Crestar for loans and cash management, while consumers seek out Crestar for more than $5 billion in new mortgages annually. Bottom line, Crestar wants people to look to one of their many branches for all their banking, investment, and insurance needs. And if they don't have the time or the inclination to leave their home or office, customers can do their banking on-line at www.crestar.com, or by phone at 1-800-CRESTAR.

The Problem

Paper. Paper's the problem. Millions and millions of pieces of paper clog the arteries of financial institutions nationwide. Take your typical bank money order transaction, for example. Buy one, and you get the money order and a copy for your records. The bank gets its own paper copy, or debit, so it can be reconciled with the paper credit slip in the evening. One transaction. Two forms: A three-part debit and a one-part credit.

Now, Crestar has over 377 branch locations. If you assume an average of four tellers at each branch, each selling four bank money orders a day, that equals 12,064 separate forms in one day. That's 12,064 forms Crestar bank needs to order, inventory, distribute to its branches, and track for one day's worth of money orders alone.

Security is always a matter of concern for banks. The safety paper on which bank money orders and other official bank checks are printed is both valuable and expensive. Banks can't leave the costly paper sitting around because a thief with a good color copier can make "hay" (AKA, pretty real looking official bank checks) with stolen safety paper. Crestar's challenge, then, was to change its ever-increasing paper trail into an electronic one without losing control of official bank checks-to automate without losing safety paper.


The Solution

Crestar was already familiar with Lexmark printers when one of Lexmark's strategic partners, Source Technologies, came knocking with their secure MICR laser check printing solution to Crestar's problem. "When we installed our platform automation system about five or six years ago, we used the Lexmark 4039 printer," reports Frank Rohrback, assistant vice president with Crestar. "They have worked very well." Now, the bank is well on its way to completing an aggressive automation project that includes over 400 Source Technologies/Lexmark MICR laser printers.

The printer used in the Crestar secure MICR solution is a state-of-the-art Lexmark Optra printer modified by Source Technologies. The modifications allow Crestar to cut drastically into its enormous paper trail, while providing ample security and flexibility in the use of valuable safety paper. Buy a money order at Crestar now, and a perforated 8-1/2" by 11" piece of safety paper runs through the Source Technologies/Lexmark printer on the counter behind the teller. The teller simply turns around and removes the paper from the printer, tears off the fully MICR-encoded check, tears off the copy for the customer's files, and hands them both to the customer. A process that used to take seven to eight minutes now takes less than two.

Customers aren't the only ones who are happier. Look at the cost savings to the bank: Instead of a paper trail to the proof department, an electronic data file, created at the teller station, now runs directly to the power-encoding system in item processing. Instead of hoards of pre-printed official bank checks, there's a stack of blank safety paper, waiting in the printer's paper trays to become a money order, cashier's check, or counter check. That's right: The Source Technologies/Lexmark printer prints the entire check, including a complete MICR line. By automating the MICR encoding of counter checks, deposit slips, official bank checks, and other bank forms at the teller line, Crestar reaps the benefits of increased efficiency, enhanced customer service, and serious cost savings. For example, according to Rohrback, Crestar estimates that implementing the secure MICR printing solution will eliminate "about 84 million pieces of paper that have to be manually encoded today."

Security is also enhanced and fraud reduced. "We take the base Lexmark Optra printer engine and alter it to provide security that's needed for a remote check printing environment," explains Marilyn Carpenter, Finance Industry manager at Source Technologies. "All manual transactions are eliminated." Security modifications include locked safety paper trays, MICR toner sensors, a SIMM to store official signatures, and password protection that allows only applications with the proper password to run on the printer. The SIMM also holds a secure font for official checks to prevent check fraud. Crestar can also print branch and teller numbers on each check for easy tracking.

When it's in MICR printing mode, Lexmark's paper jam recovery feature is disabled so that two copies of the same cashier's check don't end up in circulation. The joke is that nobody's certain if the disabling feature actually works, since Lexmark printers jam so infrequently anyway. "I've not heard of problems with paper jamming," says Rohrback, "and I would have heard." The majority of banks are selecting Lexmark as their printer of choice for its intelligent paper handling, price, performance, reliability, and trouble free operation.

Intelligent paper handling and trouble-free operation have always been the hallmarks of the Lexmark Optra family of printers. With the security modifications added by Source Technologies, a superior laser printer now provides a safe and secure solution for printing valuable bank checks and other documents. Jim Amburgey, Lexmark Business Program Partner manager, says, "This is another example of the many superior printing solutions available to Lexmark customers as a result of our strong business partner program."

Greg Taggart is a freelance writer. His work appears regularly in Bloomberg Personal Magazine.