InterSystems Honors Ontario Systems for Easing Regulatory Compliance in Collection Industry

Ontario Systems, a leading receivables management technology and services provider, is easing the regulatory burden for its customers in the third-party collection industry. Utilizing advanced software technologies from InterSystems, Ontario Systems developers rapidly designed and built a cloud-based Complaint Tracker application and delivered it to early users – in less than six weeks. Because of the solution’s potential to raise the competitive bar in the collection industry, InterSystems is honoring Ontario Systems with a Breakthrough Application Award, which recognizes innovation in application development among InterSystems software partners.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) sent shock waves through our customer base with the announcement last year that third-party collection agencies were under CFPB jurisdiction,” said Chris Cochran, Product Director, Ontario Systems. Per the CFPB, third-party collectors are now responsible for monitoring consumer complaints, putting in place a formal process to take appropriate action, and responding to the consumer that the complaint has been resolved. Collection agencies are required to capture the complaint, regardless of how it comes in, investigate within the organization to identify any possible process breakdown, perform a root cause analysis of breakdown cause, and respond to the consumer within a reasonable time, Cochran explained.

Recognizing the new compliance burden placed on collection agencies, a major segment of Ontario Systems’ customer base, Rozanne Andersen, Chief Compliance Officer of Ontario Systems and an industry thought leader in the area of compliance, researched the new CFPB rules.  Building on that insight, the company created Complaint Tracker in record time.

“We’ve been InterSystems partners for 30 years and have complete confidence in their technology platform,” Cochran said. “Building on InterSystems technologies, we went from initial concept to delivering a functional product in just 35 days.”

Complaint Tracker is built on the InterSystems Ensemble® platform for rapid development of connected applications, as well as the InterSystems Caché® high-performance database and InterSystems DeepSee®, powerful analytics technology that can be embedded in transactional systems.

Innovative Cloud Strategy Enables Fast Response, Market Expansion

In contrast with its history of delivering enterprise-scale applications deployed within the customer’s environment, Ontario Systems opted to fast-track Complaint Tracker in the cloud. “We built a prototype that was reviewed by 25 customers, applied changes, performed the production build, and deployed it in our cloud data center. The application is immediately available to any customer on a subscription basis,” according to Cochran.

“InterSystems’ technology allows us to rapidly build and deploy secure, scalable applications in record time.  Their technology enables us to quickly deliver innovations like real-time analytics with minimal additional investment. InterSystems technology and our partnership is a foundational part of our platform that we leverage to serve the needs of a growing and varied marketplace,”  said Ken Couch, Chief Enterprise Architect, Ontario Systems.

Early Complaint Tracker adopters began running the application in the third quarter of 2013, and the user base now includes 30 customers with expectations that the base will double by mid-2014. One-third of the users are new to Ontario Systems, a strong indicator that the cloud-based application is opening doors for market expansion.  Seven of the new customers are running collection systems from other providers, and the remaining three firms operate completely outside of the collection industry vertical while still being subject to CFPB compliance.

Complaint Tracker is the first product resulting from the company’s breakthrough software as a service (SaaS) strategy focused on cloud-based offerings, according to Cochran. Plans are to launch a portal in June 2014, which will host any new product built on the cloud subscription model. “We feel this is our best approach for ongoing innovation,” Cochran added.

Benefits of running in the cloud are readily apparent to Complaint Tracker customers. First, the application is conveniently available in any location and environment. In addition, Ontario Systems is able to provide customers with competitive benchmarks, which is critical to success in the challenging third-party collections market.

“Through Complaint Tracker reporting, each customer can easily determine where it stands in relation to its competitors,” Cochran explained. “Since this is a multitenant environment, we are able to gather outcomes data, de-identify it by stripping out consumer and company information, and then deliver feedback to our customers.”

For example, Cochran continued, “Suppose 40 percent of an agency’s consumer complaints are streaming in from the CFPB web site, and its competitors are receiving an average of just 18 percent from the same source. Immediately, questions are raised about why the agency is so far out of alignment with industry peers. Are there problems with the agency’s website? Is more information needed on emails or on the site itself? Complaint Tracker, which includes virtually real-time information dashboards based on InterSystems DeepSee, makes it possible to ask the right questions and stay competitive in a very tough market.”

“Our partnership with InterSystems has enabled us to deliver breakthrough solutions to our clients, and Complaint Tracker is only the latest example,” said Michael Wolfe, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for Ontario Systems. “We are pleased to receive this recognition from InterSystems on behalf of our clients.”

“Ontario Systems is recognized for its ability to serve its receivables management clients with a focus on innovation, strategy, legal compliance, and efficiency,” said Paul Grabscheid, InterSystems Vice President of Strategic Planning. “Ontario Systems’ innovative use of InterSystems technology with cloud deployment enables new customer requirements to be addressed in weeks, rather than the multi-year timeframes associated with traditional software development and implementation cycles.  The result is a real competitive advantage for Ontario Systems and its customers.”

InterSystems is a global software leader with headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and offices in 25 countries. InterSystems provides advanced technologies for breakthrough applications. InterSystems Caché® is an extremely fast and massively scalable database system. InterSystems Ensemble® is a platform for rapid integration and the development of connectable applications. InterSystems DeepSee® and InterSystems iKnowTM are technologies for conducting real-time active analytics with structured and unstructured data. For more information, visit InterSystems.com.

Ontario Systems, LLC is a leading provider of accounts receivable and strategic receivables management solutions for the collections and healthcare industries. Offering a full portfolio of software, services, and business process expertise, Ontario Systems customers include nine of the 10 largest collections agencies, and three of the five biggest health systems in the U.S., with 55,000 representatives in more than 500 locations.

To learn more about how Ontario Systems can help power up your receivables, visit OntarioSystems.com, or email info@ontariosystems.com.