CB&T Automates to Expand Beyond Loan Servicing.

Louisville, KY -- In moving from a servicing outfit to an origination and servicing shop, Commonwealth Bank & Trust Co. here realized that it had to turn to technology to assist this transition.

The company's first effort was to automate pricing, given that this was unfamiliar to a company that focused heavily on servicing loans and not originating. In investing in Optimal Blue's pricing technology, the bank has seen improvements in accuracy and has significantly increased yields and commissions on loans.

Prior to Optimal Blue, Commonwealth was using a proprietary price modeling system generated by the bank's internal IT staff. This model was efficient when dealing with conforming products, but with the introduction of newer and more complex products, the system did not allow Commonwealth to operate at peak efficiency.

The bank's staff had to load pricing into the system every day as well as pay for an outside firm to host the technology. In an effort to streamline the process, management wanted to upgrade the system and began looking at product eligibility and pricing engine vendors.

"My predecessor was focused on servicing loans," pointed out Bart Doerhoefer, SVP and mortgage division manager of Commonwealth. "We made some changes there. We've also replaced an in-house LOS with an external LOS while still hustling for the business. We had a pricing tool developed internally. It was great at the time, but it had outlived its usefulness.

"We're pricing loans more competitively. We looked at five or six other vendors. In doing interviews with other lenders it was an easy decision. We were using a price model technology prior so the transition was easy. Those companies used to rate sheets might think it was more difficult.

"The training was very easy as well," continued Mr. Doerhoefer. "We spent two days in Texas and configured all our ...