HOME TRUST COMPANY : Outsourcing leads to IT partnership

The Situation

Home Trust Company a subsidiary of Home Capital Group (TSE:HCG.B) is a federally regulated trust company that specializes in supplying mortgages to the self-employed, small business owners, and individuals whose needs aren't met by traditional financial institutions. Ezenet's relationship with Home Trust began in 1981 when the company outsourced their batch processing and customized reporting of mortgages and GICs to Ezenet. Ezenet subsequently went on to design and provide technical support for Home Trust's Local and Wide Area Networks (LAN/WAN).

As new technology fuelled customer demand for additional products and services, Home Trust faced a dilemma. To stay competitive would require the provision of a broader range of reliable and secure products and services. This in turn would require a major investment in hardware, software, staffing and training, which would lead to higher overhead costs. Unless there was an alternative solution…

The EZENET Solution

Home Trust looked to Ezenet to become their software and systems technology partner. Using a secure, dedicated line linking to Ezenet's server farm, and a custom-designed LAN and WAN environment, Home Trust was able to outsource all aspects of its back-end processing and reporting to Ezenet. While Ezenet carried out the batch processing, regulatory reporting and network management for Home Trust's range of mortgage and deposit products, Home Trust could get on with the business that had made them successful.

With Ezenet as its technology partner, Home Trust was able to meet customer demand and remain a market leader, without significant cost increases. Ezenet's technology now enables Home Trust to offer customers on-line mortgage applications, which has opened up new markets in new geographies. Home Trust now has branches in Central and Western Canada, and Ezenet continues to provide off-site IT support and services nationwide.

"Ezenet developed a tailor-made solution that works for us, at a time when it simply wasn't cost-effective for us to set up and run our own IT department," says Gerald Soloway, President, Home Capital Group. "We realized that Ezenet knew our business, they understood the financial market in which we operate, and they had the technical expertise to deliver a scalable solution. Although in a strict sense we outsource our IT requirements to Ezenet, we prefer to think of our relationship as an on-going partnership - one that will continue to develop as we expand our customer base and increase our range of financial products and services."