ISLANDIA, N.Y. — Champlain National Bank has entered the indirect auto finance channel behind a cloud-based decisioning system developed by Teledata Communications Inc.

Bank officials said the move is part of an effort to diversify the finance source's loan portfolio from mortgages and commercial loans. And after deploying TCI's DecisionLender 4 loan origination system, the bank integrated with Dealertrack and RouteOne. According to bank officials, the bank has also signed a substantial number of dealers in its New York region.

“One of the bank’s prime growth strategies revolves around the diversification of our loan portfolio,” said Steven Cacchio, president and CEO of Champlain National Bank. “We have a strong loan portfolio in both commercial lending and mortgages, but recognized that adding a consumer lending component would give us that ‘third leg of the stool’ we had been seeking.”

In a company press release, Champlain National Bank stated that it was looking for a fast and cost-efficient way to expand into indirect consumer lending when it decided on TCI's solution. The decision system allows financial institutions to managing lending rules, parameters, application fields and workflows without requiring IT resources.

“Institutions like Champlain National Bank are facing competitive pressures from both traditional and online lenders, and are constantly looking to broaden their reach by pursuing lending opportunities in a variety of sectors,” said Barry Kirby II, vice president at TCI. “The DecisionLender 4 platform is perfectly suited for helping these financial institutions. As a cloud-based system, it gives lenders unmatched flexibility for creating lending programs tailored for specific markets. This not only expands the addressable market for lenders, it allows them to substantially reduce operational costs while also improving efficiency across the organization.”