Leading Analyst Firm Celent Honors Northway Bank in its 2010 Model Bank Awards

BURLINGTON, Mass., June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Northway Bank, a leading New England financial services organization has been honored in Celent's 2010 Model Bank awards for its innovative use of the Econiq frontline sales effectiveness solution.  

(Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100602/NE11833 )

The awards, which are held annually, recognize a select group of banks for their inspired use of technology. Northway Bank has been honored for its achievement in driving significant improvements in cross-sales and referrals across its frontline channels with the innovative use of the Econiq solution.  As a result of the technology initiative the bank has enjoyed increases in household growth rates, consumer deposits, home equity loans, relationship product sales and investment referrals.

Commenting on the award, Richard Olson, Director of Consumer and Small Business Banking at Northway states, "We are delighted to be recognized as one of Celent's model banks for our deployment of the Econiq solution.  Like many banks, driving cross sales and referrals from our frontline channels had been a key strategic challenge that we struggled to overcome. Econiq transformed the situation for us and delivered real results fast.  Within 3 months of deployment our frontline sales significantly improved and sales referrals skyrocketed.  Furthermore the solution was quick to implement and easy to use."

The Econiq solution provides Northway Bank with a systemic way to capture and record customer insights and information, gathered during everyday interactions, to create rich and insightful customer profiles. The solution analyzes these profiles to get a thorough understanding of customers' financial needs and identifies cross sales and services opportunities. It then drives alerts directly to staff about products or services appropriate to the customers' need or creates automated referrals to other parts of the bank to initiate follow up as required.

In addition to identifying and driving sales opportunities, the Econiq solution provides bank management with real time and historical reports into frontline interactions that give them a significantly improved depth of understanding as to why customers come into their branches, the interactions that occur and what strategies can be adopted to improve performance and optimize efficiencies.

"Achieving good cross sales rate from frontline channels has long been a challenge for the financial services industry.  We are delighted to be able to recognize Northway Bank as one of the forward looking institutions that has managed to crack the challenge through its application of the Econiq solution," remarks Jacob Jegher, Senior Research Director, Celent.

Launched in North America in 2009, the Econiq solution is gaining rapid traction in banks and credit unions and is currently used in over 40 operations across the US. Visit www.econiq.com

SOURCE Econiq