They say history often repeats itself.

That was especially important when it came time for The CIT Group's Captive Program Unit to choose a solution for automating their credit and financing decisions. They needed a way to process requests quickly, thoroughly, consistently, and cost-effectively. And like any good finance organization, they didn't want to take any unnecessary risks. For Clyde Yandell, Vice President of The CIT Group's Captive Program Unit, five years of history working with eCredit made the selection process easy. "I've been a convert of eCredit's for a long time," said Yandell. "I had worked with them in the past at another company. I just reviewed the market again to see if there was anything comparable. But I didn't find anything like what eCredit offers."

As a financing organization, The CIT Group's Captive Program Unit partners with large manufacturers and distributors to act as their own in-house finance source. The Unit provides financing for personal computers, office automation equipment, telecommunications products, medical equipment and other products to a wide range of business customers. CIT's goal was to capture more customers and gain a competitive advantage by automating their credit decisioning processes and providing real-time credit decisions. And with eCredit that's just what they did.

With eCredit, CIT has taken its credit decision process to a new level. In one seamless flow of information, the applicant's data is sent electronically to the eCredit system, the system pulls the appropriate reports based on a pre-defined process, and a credit score is determined by the eCredit system to arrive at a decision based on CIT's own underwriting criteria. Then the system sends back an electronic answer to the financing vendor, often without any manual intervention. So for example, if a manufacturer has a customer on the phone line who's interested in a product, CIT can get an answer back while that customer is still on the line in just minutes, instead of the hours or days some credit decisions take.

One of the most important considerations for CIT in choosing eCredit was the ability to integrate the new system with CIT's customers. eCredit's solution enables CIT customers to receive a financing decision quickly and easily, with no manual processes or extra steps needed. Just as important, eCredit's solution integrates with CIT's own credit decision processes. "eCredit's process engine was definitely a factor in choosing our solution," said Yandell. "We sat down and mapped out exactly how we wanted our process to work." As Yandell also noted, the process engine makes it easy to make changes with a simple graphical interface. So CIT's business managers can easily adjust the process to respond to changing business conditions or market opportunities.