Lake City Bank’s Digital Strategy Streamlines Operations, Boosts Customer Experience

IMM, the leading source of eSignatures designed exclusively for financial institutions, announced that long-term client, Lake City Bank, achieved several key milestones in 2017 positioning the bank for continued success in its ongoing digital banking initiative. The bank implemented eSignatures across the entire organization as a key component of their digital strategy to drive greater efficiencies and faster processing of transactions. Perhaps more importantly, eSignatures boost the overall customer experience and convenience by providing modern, digital transaction capabilities.

 

Following the bank’s conversion to the FIS core business system in 2011, the bank implemented IMM eSign for Banks, citing IMM’s unique ability to seamlessly integrate with its existing business systems. Lake City was also impressed with IMM’s focused expertise in the financial industry. At the time of implementation, the bank was considered an early adopter of eSignatures and initially leveraged the technology to enhance its new customer onboarding process, allowing customers to open new accounts at a time and place that was most convenient.

 

“In addition to the quantifiable savings we have realized, one of the greatest benefits we’ve noted is a much more relaxed environment for our employees and our customers,” said Kevin Deardoff, Executive Vice President of Lake City Bank. “Before eSignatures, bank staff often noted that customers would come in to discuss opening new accounts or funding options, but due to limited time and schedule constraints these interactions would often be rushed and would typically require the customer to come back to the branch to finalize paperwork. Since implementing eSignatures, we’ve been able to eliminate much of the pressure and time constraints that were associated with these transactions.”

 

Recently, the bank has expanded its use of eSignatures to include treasury management agreements, unsecured loans, as well as in its consumer solutions department, digitizing re-payment agreements and other relevant documents.

 

Deardoff continued, “IMM has been instrumental in helping the bank accomplish all of the digital goals we established across the organization. For example, they provide dynamic signature technology. This means the placement of the signature and the type of signature required can be automatically established depending on the type of document needed for each transaction. Treasury management agreements often range anywhere from five pages to 50 depending on which services the customer needs. We couldn’t have digitized this process without the flexibility provided by IMM’s technology. Our advice to other banks is to look at eSignatures as the foundation, or pivotal catalyst to shifting to an electronic environment.”

 

Additionally, the bank has been able to provide a number of new digital tools and services to customers in new markets without adding additional resources. Business hours are whenever the customer needs them to be, and from wherever it is most convenient. Lake City Bank’s goal for every document—including internal paperwork, new employee onboarding materials and even change of address forms—is to be completely digital, reducing reliance on paper across the board.

 

IMM’s Vice President of Marketing and Strategy, Michael Ball said, “Lake City Bank is a great example of how eSignatures not only streamline back-office operations, but ultimately provide the comprehensive customer experience that modern consumers now have come to expect today. Banks will continue to be challenged to deliver higher levels of digital services to their customers and eSignatures is one of the few technologies that allows institutions to make this digital vision a reality. We’ve worked with hundreds of leading banks like Lake City Bank to implement eSignatures and in each instance the bank reports positive results with an almost immediate ROI.”

 

About IMM

For over 21 years, IMM has been a leading innovator of eSignature solutions designed exclusively for Financial Institutions.  Today, more than 775 U.S. Banks and Credit Unions use IMM’s eSign solutions across the Institution to enhance consumer experiences while also streamlining back-office processes.

 

About Lake City Bank

Lake City Bank, a $4.7 billion bank headquartered in Warsaw, Indiana, is the fourth largest bank headquartered in the state, and the largest bank 100% invested in Indiana. Lake City Bank operates 49 branch offices in northern and central Indiana, delivering technology-driven solutions in a client-centric way to individuals and businesses. The bank is the single bank subsidiary of Lakeland Financial Corporation (Nasdaq Global Select/LKFN). For more information visit www.lakecitybank.com.