How Fountain Trust Elevated Customer Experience While Driving Operational Efficiency
Opening its doors in 1903, Covington, Indiana-based The Fountain Trust Company was founded primarily with the vision of being a trust company and insurance agency but began operating as a commercial bank in response to demand from the community. The bank made a profit in its first fiscal year and has remained profitable every year since by continuing its longstanding tradition of supporting its local communities. Operating as a small local bank in the truest sense, its deposits are from local customers and its loans are to local borrowers.
Legacy Systems, Modern Expectations
Fountain Trust found itself caught between outdated production methods and modern customer expectations. The bank had been managing statement processing through a combination of in-house operations and disconnected vendor relationships that created several critical challenges.
"We really did not like the fact that with our previous core provider, the system rendered a paper statement that was very ugly, as is the case with most core generated forms and reports," explains Brian Dowers, SVP and Chief Operations Officer for Fountain Trust.
“We would print the core rendered statement on special statement paper for mailing to the customer, however, what the customers would see online was the same ugly black and white page rendered by the core. We tried to use templates and overlays for the online statement, but this came with its own challenges and quality issues.”
This inconsistency was creating real problems. Customers were frequently calling to request reprints of their statements on official statement paper for the state board of accounts, audits, or other official purposes because they needed documentation on official bank forms. Meanwhile, the bank's in-house production infrastructure was becoming increasingly burdensome and expensive.
"The cost of our last big inserter was $45,000," notes Dowers. "It was a very professional unit, but we were producing everything in-house. The statements were rendered in-house, printed in-house, inserted and then we delivered them to the postal service. All the while, the cost to own and maintain this equipment was adding up!”
This operational approach was diverting resources from core banking functions. The bank was handling all these production tasks, prompting leadership to question: Could we become more efficient? Could we let someone else do non-banking things so we can focus on our mission, banking?
Customization, Not Configuration
As Fountain Trust evaluated statement vendors, they discovered a crucial difference in approaches. Most providers offered limited template options.
"The vendors we looked at provided a limited number of templates to choose from. We could choose the color and logo, but the layout was set. This approach didn’t offer the type of customization and branding we wanted that would set us apart. We wanted to be unique; not just one more bank using Statement Layout 6," said Dowers.
HC3's approach was fundamentally different. "HC3 said, 'How do you want it to look?' That is not the way the other conversations started," Dowers explains.
“We thought, wow, we can actually be a medium-sized bank and look like a bigger bank because we can have a statement just like Chase's or just like Bank of America's. The sky is the limit – we could really do it the way we wanted."
This customization philosophy opened new possibilities beyond just basic checking account statements. As an example, Dowers approached the bank’s Chief Lending Officer with an idea: "Have you ever thought about providing customers a loan mortgage statement with a coupon attached instead of mailing out coupon books?" When the lending team expressed interest, HC3 confirmed they could deliver.
"We turned this simple statement project for DDA statements into a much more significant opportunity for the bank to brand and market to our customers through both the paper channel and the electronic channel, for both DDA and loan statements," Dowers says. With HC3, the bank’s paper statements, eStatements, and archived statements are all consistent with the same look and feel.
Fountain Trust began with checking account statements, creating custom designs that maintained perfect consistency between paper and electronic versions. The bank then implemented new loan statements with attached payment coupons, replacing traditional coupon books with a more professional and efficient solution.
One significant aspect of the HC3 implementation was the bank’s core change. During this phased implementation, Fountain Trust underwent a major conversion to Jack Henry. Statements would need to be sent just days after going live. Because HC3 is core-agnostic, this process was seamless. Additionally, HC3 provided critical round-the-clock support to ensure statement continuity.
"Our first statement was going to come out five days after conversion," Dowers recalls. "HC3 ended up working their magic and staging the historical data to where all of it worked." HC3 was able to produce all statements at conversion from the bank’s old core and produce statements off the new system five days later, including its Loan Mortgage Statements. Paper statements, eStatements, and archived statements all had to be ready, making this a tremendous effort.
From Burden to Benefit: Operational Transformation
By outsourcing statement production, the bank eliminated the need to purchase, maintain and repair expensive in-house equipment. Staff no longer had to troubleshoot printer breakdowns or inserter jams, allowing them to focus on more valuable banking activities.
"It's simply about things getting done within the day without overtime or stress about the printer being down or the inserter messing up," explains Jennifer Hanthorn, Operations Manager of Fountain Trust. "As we went through transitions and changes, we could right-size those departments in a better way."
Cost Optimization, Zero Equipment Headaches
The bank also avoided significant capital expenditures on new inserting and printing equipment while reducing ongoing maintenance and labor costs. The reduction in coupon book production for loan accounts provided additional savings.
Branding Like Big Bank Competitors
Customers now experience the same professional, branded statement design whether viewing electronically or receiving paper statements – eliminating previous customer confusion and service calls requesting official reprints. This was critical for Fountain Trust, allowing the bank to continue providing service with the same community feel but with a big-bank look, helping to be more competitive.
Every Statement, a Marketing Opportunity
The bank's marketing team also gained a powerful new channel for targeted communications, with the ability to quickly deploy different messages to various customer segments such as commercial versus retail clients.
Core Conversion Success
Despite undergoing one of the most significant operational changes a bank can experience – a complete core system conversion – Fountain Trust maintained statement continuity for customers thanks to HC3's support.
"How do you gauge success of such a significant project like a core conversion? It's what the customers think," Dowers emphasizes. “In that regard, customer statements went out without a glitch.”
Strategic Growth Support
As Fountain Trust pursues its growth plans, they now have a scalable statement solution ready to deploy in new markets. "As we expand into new markets, we want customer-ready products that we can present from day one that represent us well," Dowers explains. “Doing so means partnering with organizations that provide us the flexibility and creativity to think beyond what has been done before.”
Community Banking Excellence in the Digital Age
Fountain Trust continues to navigate the evolving banking landscape with a clear focus on maintaining their community bank identity while leveraging technology to compete effectively with larger institutions.
The HC3 partnership exemplifies the bank's broader approach to digital transformation – partnering with organizations who can bring big-bank capabilities to their community banking model without forcing them into one-size-fits-all solutions or templated customer communication that looks like every other bank.
As Fountain Trust grows, their statement strategy has become more than just an operational necessity – it's now a competitive advantage and growth enabler in their journey forward.
"To have an organization that can partner with you in taking something that is still back-office legacy work and transform it into a very modern style and present it in multiple formats – that is something we can't do on our own," Dowers concludes. "That's an important partnership to have going forward as things keep changing."