Photo courtesy of rmcinnovate.com After doubling in size within the past two years, Epic River’s need to increase its office space was becoming urgent. Originally located in Loveland, Colorado, the company needed office space that would be conducive to the high-tech company’s growth patterns while remaining located near northern Colorado’s two primary transportation arteries, Interstate 25 and U.S. Highway 34. So when company executives began researching the 177 acre parcel known as the Rocky Mountain Center for Innovation and Technology, the company took note of the more than 811,000 square feet of office and manufacturing space. The campus, formerly owned by Agilent Technologies and now managed by Cumberland and Western, provides ample room for companies to locate a large operation in a single location and still have room to grow. Photo courtesy rmcinnovate.com Epic River began to focus on building D, the largest of the four available buildings, which included newly renovated offices, a walkout garden level, and a beautiful courtyard between buildings C and D. And the campus’ mountain views of Colorado’s northern front range, the Big Thompson River Valley and the city of Loveland wasn’t anything to ignore either. “Though our need for space was the initial driving factor in relocating Epic River, the Innovation Center’s collaborative work environment with other high tech companies offers a mutually beneficial relationship that we believe adds momentum to Epic River’s growth potential,” noted Scott Mead, Epic River’s Managing Partner. Epic River is planning an office build out over the next few months and will be the second tenant to the RMCIT when it relocates its office headquarters in spring 2014.

After a two year controlled, measurable launch with six financial institutions, MyLoans announces its national rollout.

Epic River is pleased to announce the release of ProSign® Mobile, an add-on tablet signing option to the ProSign application. Developed by Epic River in coordination with Harland Financial Solutions, ProSign provides a means for electronically signing documents required for opening or modifying deposit and loan accounts. Previously, only USB or Serial attached signature pad devices were used to capture digital signatures. Signatures can now be captured by a wide variety of wirelessly connected mobile tablet devices, such as iPads, Windows Surfaces or Android Tablets. ProSign takes your financial institution one step closer to paperless.

What should a community bank do if they decide the 848 pages, 1,500 provisions and 398 rule-making requirements of the Dodd Frank Mortgage Lending Reform make mortgage lending simply not worth it? Often times, community banks carve out a niche, providing lending and service to local individuals who may fall outside normal lending parameters. Dodd Frank mortgage lending reform shines a spotlight on lending at the "margins" and would therefore put community banking practices at risk of heavy regulation. Community banks are a key part of banking in the U.S. and while Dodd Frank was enacted to eliminate "too big to fail," in this case, it feels like the mortgage reform will do exactly the opposite. It is likely Dodd Frank mortgage lending reform will cut at the interest revenue business of community banks and force more customers into the "too big" super regional, national and international financial institutions.

Loan Officer Compensation Under Title XIV, Subtitle A of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, banks are no longer allowed to provide loan officer compensation or mortgage loan originator compensation that varies based on the terms of the loan. This is causing an inability for banks to compensate their loan officers in a way that aligns the loan officer compensation with the bank's goals. A misalignment of this nature can significantly hamper bank health and profitability.

Patient financing. Just about every bank has tried it. Most financial institutions agree that if the patient has the credit worthiness and the dollar amount of the loan is large enough, patient financing is good business for the bank. The problem is, almost all patient financing is small dollar amount and the time and cost of underwriting simply isn't worth it. Historically patients have been forced to rely on their personal credit card or "medical" credit cards. (Think Home Depot card with the a same-as-cash introductory period and then an absurd interest hammer if you don't pay it off before the introductory period ends.) Time Magazine's "Bitter Pill" article noted that 20% of the United States' GDP is spent on healthcare and that PERCENTAGE is rising every year. That is $2.8 trillion that is being added to revolving credit balances, coming out of depleted savings accounts or being squeezed into monthly budgets and paid through medical provider financed payment plans.

The Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is making it more difficult and more expensive for banks to create and service mortgage loans. When you combine this with a recovering but still very slow housing market, banks need to look for new ways to generate interest income. Financial institutions are notoriously slow to adapt to changes in markets or changes in regulation. When they are hit with changes to both banks go into prioritization mode. By their nature, bankers are risk averse. The loss of interest income is bad, but reduction in staff or branch closures can offset loss of income. If you fall into regulatory punishment a bank can lose its charter. So what can a bank do but spend its time and resources on regulatory compliance?

Medical credit card debt has been around basically since the inception of credit cards, but as time goes on things are getting worse, not better. As more companies enter the medical credit card market, the need for laws and regulation increase. In a recent inquiry by the New York State Attorney General's office, a settlement was reached requiring the medical credit card provider to modify its practices by limiting charges, requiring clearer disclosures of higher interest rates and not giving kickbacks, rebates, compensation, or in-kind services to any health care provider in exchange for its success in generating card business. According to the settlement agreement, this numbers are staggering for just this one medical credit card provider: issued its credit cards to more than 535,000 people through 7,800 medical providers just in New York state. an average of 68 credit card holders per medical practice has approximately 160,000 health care providers under contract Using the state of New York as a baseline, that works out to almost 11 MILLION PEOPLE charging their medical procedures and care to high interest credit cards provided by this company.

A recent FDIC survey has determined that 51 million adult Americans are either "unbanked" or "underbanked." These individuals are those who either have no relationship with a bank (not even a checking account) or have a tenuous relationship with a bank but still rely on alternative financial services like check cashing and payday loans. Furthermore, most of these individuals and households have no savings accounts. Without savings, these Americans have a significant problem when they incur unexpected medical treatment or procedures. The bills pile up fast; there is no savings to fall back on and often times, the medical provider is left with drawn out payment plans or no payment at all. Patient financing could be the answer.

During his opening address to the user conference, President of Harland Financial Services, Raj Shivdasani stated one of the major problems facing banks and economic recovery is a low loan demand and near-record low interest rates. This situation could drag economic recovery as the general public just doesn't want to borrow money, and even when they do, the margins are incredibly thin.