Farm Credit Leasing Goes Live with IDS Rapport
Implementation of Web-based origination-through-booking system
to support lessor’s business growth initiative
MINNEAPOLIS, MN, July 21, 2005 – International Decision Systems (IDS), the standard-setting leader in equipment financing software and service solutions, announced today that Farm Credit Leasing (FCL) has gone live with IDS Rapport and will be rolling out the system beginning in the third quarter to its Farm Credit System association partners.
FCL, an independently chartered institution of the Farm Credit System, is the U.S.’s largest agricultural leasing company, serving more than 7,000 customers and managing over $1 billion in lease assets. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CoBank, which specializes in financing for U.S. agribusinesses, rural utilities and Farm Credit associations.
“We chose to replace a group of disparate systems with one tightly integrated front-end system that uses leasing best practices to simplify bid quote to closing,” said Mike Romanowski, Vice President of Strategic Relationships for FCL’s parent company CoBank. “Our overarching goal was to integrate and align our business functions and market approach to better serve our partners, and to support our mission to be the preferred provider of financial services to the system.”
Mr. Romanowski added that beyond Rapport, IDS played a key role in the business process reengineering stage, “providing strong underlying support which was crucial to the project’s success. We’ve already begun to see the benefits and are keeping in step with future developments in lease accounting.”
“It is exciting to see the transformation taking place at FCL,” said Todd Davis, Chief Operating Officer of IDS. “Rapport is proving its mettle in terms of handling some of the most complex situations from a leasing perspective, and its ability to be customized with an extraordinary breadth of business rules.”
Rapport will enhance core application processing functionality,
partner/vendor
support and reporting capabilities, increase information
security, and support multiple
financial product types and participations. In addition,
it will provide multiple
workflow efficiencies, as well as connectivity with other
FCL applications, and has been
developed to handle the tax rules for all 50 states, including
tax exemption, down to the
county and city level, as the appropriate tax logic has
been configured into the system.
Introduced in 2002, Rapport has been selected by
more than 25 companies to
increase the efficiency of their lease/loan processing from
origination through booking.
While it can be fully integrated with a range of back-office
systems, the teaming of
Rapport with ProFiniaTM, the asset-centric lease/loan accounting
system from IDS,
forms a powerful, highly customizable solution suite that
promotes increased
productivity and return on asset (ROA) across the enterprise.
IDS’s expert Professional
Services team offers a full range of client support, including
a complete migration
strategy to minimize the cost and risk associated with conversion
to these solutions.
About International Decision Systems
International Decision Systems (IDS) is the global leader
in developing lease/loan
accounting and portfolio management software and services.
Headquartered in
Minneapolis, Minnesota, IDS also has offices in London, Sydney,
and Singapore. IDS
offers the largest and most experienced global consulting,
implementation, and technical
support teams in the equipment financing industry. For additional
information about
International Decision Systems, visit www.idsgrp.com.
About Farm Credit Leasing (FCL)
With more than $1 billion in leases outstanding, FCL
serves 7,000 customers across the
nation. Customers include agricultural producers, cooperatives,
Farm Credit
associations, agribusinesses and rural electric, communications
and water systems. FCL
is part of the $125 billion U.S. Farm Credit System, and
is a wholly-owned subsidiary of
CoBank, a Farm Credit System bank with $31 billion in assets.
For more information on
FCL, visit www.fcleasing.com.
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Media Contacts:
Deb Marshall, IDS Marketing Director, 612-851-3438, dmarshal l@idsgrp.com
Konaji lo Luseni, Makovsky & Co., Inc., 212-508-9684, kluseni@makovsky.com