April 2008 Can the Business Banking model add lift and increase sales in the Middle Market Lending segment? John O'Connor, Commerical Lending Practice Executive, explores the possibilities in Middle Market Lending - Best Practices in Origination and Portfolio Management.

April 2008 Auto Finance Practice Executive, Rich Apicella, and George Halloran recently authored The Rising Repossession Tide, which analyzes the rising rate of repossessions and explores methods that organizations can use to prepare for the coming flood.

April 2008 Rich Apicella presented the results of the 2008 CBA Automotive Finance Survey at the Consumer Bankers Association National Automotive Finance Conference. The survey, conducted by BenchMark, reported latest trends in automotive portfolio growth, credit quality, loan terms and loan-to-value trends across respondents from banks, captive auto finance and independent finance companies.

March 2008 Rich Apicella presented the results of a BenchMark-conducted survey on vehicle remarketing trends, performance metrics and process intervals. The study was commissioned by the International Automotive Remarketers Alliance (IARA), and presented at their annual conference conducted in conjuction with the Center for Automotive Research.

March 2008 SourceMedia held it's 12th Annual National Collections and Credit Risk Conference in New Orleans where Rich Apicella facilitated a panel discussion entitlted "Auto Collections: An Art of Negotiation." Participants on the panel included representatives from BMW Financial Services, Triad Financial and Austin Logistics.

February 2008 Rich Apicella, Auto Finance Practice Executive, facilitated a panel discussion at the American Financial Services Association annual auto finance conference entitlted "Driving Best Practices in Collections and Servicing." Participants on the panel included representatives from Capital One Auto Finance, Center One and BenchMark Consulting International.

February 2008 As an organization, are you doing all that you can to minimize future losses given recent economic trends? President, Walter Cunningham and Practice Executives John O'Connor, Brian King, and Rich Apicella provide insight on loss mitigation in Reducing Credit Losses in 2008.

February 2008 Are you monitoring your business and making decisions based on data or information? President, Walter Cunningham and Consumer Lending Practice Executive Brian King, explain the difference between data and information and how robust information can be the key to demystifying the decision-making process in Business Intelligence –What’s Next.

January 2008 BenchMark announces the results of the Equity Default Management Quick Survey. Conducted by BenchMark, this study includes detailed findings on the current home equity collections and recovery efforts for leading commercial banks and other financial institutions. Learn more about the survey and the findings in Home Equity Default Management Quick Survey Results.

December 2007 President, Walter Cunningham, and Paul McNamara adds Business Intelligence: The Business of Trust to the business intelligence series, indicating that the key ingredient to a successful business intelligence provider is trust.

November 2007 John O'Connor, Commerical Lending Practice Executive, recently authored Driving Institutional Performance Through Coaching, which discusses how developing a successful coaching model for an organization has many challenges but the benefits continue to grow.

October 2007 Brian King, Consumer Lending Practice Executive, addresses the importance of an institution’s efficiency in Efficiency Ratio - A Focal Point For Change.

October 2007 Impact of Longer Term Maturities , co-authored by Richard Apicella (Auto Finance Practice Executive); George Halloran; and Brad Neigel, focuses on the increasing trend and the dangers of booking auto loans with longer term maturities.

September 2007 Preliminary 2007 Home Equity Lending study results presented by Consumer Lending Practice Executive, Brian King, at the CBA conference in San Diego.

July 2007 John O'Connor and Will Phillips co-authored Designing a Well-Aligned Portfolio Management Approach. The recently released white paper discusses the need for a consistent model between originating new credits and the review and renewal processes for existing credits.

July 2007 Reverse mortgages are rapidly gaining momentum. Read about the different types of reverse mortgages in Brian King's most recent white paper, Reverse Mortgage Lending - Now in Fast Forward.

July 2007 The series of business intelligence papers continues as President, Walter Cunningham and Paul McNamara address the importance of the Timeliness of Business Intelligence Data.

June 2007 Consumer Lending Practice Executive, Brian King, presented the results of the 2007 Consumer Bankers Association (CBA) Consumer Credit Collections study during the June conference in Orlando, FL.

June 2007 NAF Non-Prime Auto Finance preliminary study findings presented by BenchMark during the June NAF conference in Fort Worth, TX.

April 2007 Benchmark Consulting International Launches Industry's First Online Business Intelligence Program with Peer Comparison.

March 2007 BenchMark launches Business Intelligence Powered by BenchMark, the industry's first online business intelligence program featuring peer comparisons. Three of the top 10 banks have already signed up with BenchMark for the program which provides a secure online dashboard that delivers monthly metrics for Consumer, Home Equity, and Automotive Lenders.

February 2007 Walter Cunningham, President, continues the series of strategy-related articles in Business Intelligence and Strategic Choices where he stresses that the key to defining and implementing a winning strategy centers around the choices an organization makes.

January 2007 John O’Connor, Commercial Lending practice executive, recently authored Commercial Lending: The Evolving Relationship Manager Model, which discusses how some organizations are re-thinking the traditional relationship manager model.

January 2007 Brian King, Consumer Lending practice executive, reports there are many variables to consider when evaluating a risk-based pricing strategy in Risk-Based Pricing – Back to the Basics.

December 2006 While the value of business intellegence is clear, many institutions struggle with how to identify and execute change. Learn how successful organizations define and apply business intelligence to execute a winning strategy in Walter Cunningham's five-minute podcast, Three Key Challenges with Business Intelligence for Financial Institutions.

November 2006 Brian King, Consumer Lending practice executive, identifies three strategies that banks are successfully deploying to address retention concerns in Home Equity Retention Strategies

November 2006 John O’Connor, Commerical Lending practice executive, recently authored Straight Through Processing (STP), which discusses how commercial lending can achieve improvements in efficiency, cost-savings, and customer satisfaction.

October 2006 Like any other lending industry, Auto Finance is not a stationary line of business. Read how Auto Finance originations is ever-changing in Walter Cunningham's article, The Evolving Auto Finance Originations Domain.

October 2006 The recent discussion about the “commoditization” of the financial services industry has raised several questions surrounding marketplace differentiation and strategy.  President of BenchMark Consulting International, Cheryl Yaeger, addresses these questions in Aligning Choices with Strategy: Differentiating Activities.

September 2006 The September issue of Secondary Marketing Executive features a reprint of Consumer and Mortgage Loan practice executive, Brian King’s 1st Quarter white paper.  The article entitled Advances Have Substantially Cut Origination Turnarounds, discusses where the industry has made great strides toward reducing the time to close a home equity loan.

September 2006 Brian King, Consumer and Mortgage Loan practice executive, presented the preliminary findings of the 2006 Consumer Bankers Association (CBA) Home Equity Lending study on September 11th at the CBA's Home Equity Lending Conference in Orlando.

August 2006 The evolution of non-prime financing is discussed in The Excitement About the Non-Prime Auto Financing Industry.

August 2006 With continued focus and innovation in Small Business, why do banks still struggle in this space? John O'Connor, Commercial Lending Practice Executive, takes an in-depth look at this question by addressing business line ownership, credit risk, technology, and delivery channels in his white paper, Small Business Lending: Maintaining Equilibrium.

August 2006 Benchmark Consulting International Completes National Automotive Finance Association's 2006 Non-Prime Automotive Financing Survey.

July 2006 Learn how the increasing level of regulation is affecting the financial industry in President, Cheryl Yaeger’s white paper, Risk Management and Compliance – Impacts on Financial Institutions.

July 2006 Cross-sell can add value to an organization’s new and existing customers but requires successful execution and tracking to be effective. Consumer and Mortgage Lending Practice Executive, Brian King elaborates on best practices, pitfalls to avoid and more in Consumer Lending Cross-Sell and Product Bundling.

June 2006 Brian King, Consumer and Mortgage Loan practice executive, presented the findings of the 2006 Consumer Bankers Association (CBA) Consumer Credit Collections and Recovery study on June 8th at the CBA's Collections Conference in New Orleans, LA.

May 2006 In his white paper entitled, Document Imaging: The Origin of Streamlined Effective Workflows, John O’Connor, Commercial Lending practice executive, describes how the benefits derived from imaging have enabled “push” rather than “pull” workflow management by providing enhanced information surrounding accountability, volumes and turn times.

May 2006 Clear processes are critical when Aligning New Technologies with Operational Goals, according to Marguerite Watanabe, Auto Finance practice executive, and it is incumbent on business owners to ensure that operational goals are effectively translated into technology plans.

April 2006 In her white paper entitled, The Value of Benchmarking, Cheryl Yaeger, President, describes the importance of “using well defined measures and ensuring comparability at frequent intervals” to build actionable information for performance measurement.

April 2006 Brian King, Consumer and Mortgage Lending Practice Executive, discusses the time and cost benefits experienced by lenders and their customers from advances in Property Valuation, Title, Flood, and Closings—The Past, The Present and The Future.

April 2006 BenchMark Consulting International Announces Results From Ninth Auto Finance Benchmark Program

April 24, 2006 issue of Home Equity News included an article quoting practice executive Brian King stating, "Three out of four home equity loans originated by the end of next year could be underwritten using an automated valuation model, up 14% from a year ago."

March 2006 Cheryl Yaeger, President, comments on the importance of measuring performance in a dynamic way when gauging contact center (call center) success (Bank Systems & Technology Online, Opportunity Calling, January 3, 2006).

February 2006 The importance of reviewing your value proposition is addressed in "Your Value Proposition: The Foundation of Strategy".

February 2006 Brian King, Consumer Lending practice executive, discusses how institutions can best position themselves for success by proactively addressing changes in the credit collections arena in "The Impact of Effective Home Equity Collections on the Entire Organization".

January 2006 Cheryl Yaeger, President, further addresses change in the financial services industry by discussing the stumbling blocks of change and how to overcome them in "Change Management-Trends in Governance Structures".

January 2006 John O'Connor, Commercial Lending practice executive, moderated an RMA audioconference between two business banking executives discussing credit scoring within their organizations ( Credit Scoring Today by Kathleen M. Beans).

December 2005 Brian King, Consumer Lending practice executive, reports that examining policy, process and technology can well serve financial services institutions in "Strategies to Achieve Growth in Home Equity Lending".

December 2005 John O'Connor, Commercial Lending practice executive, recently authored "Best Practices for Middle Market Lending", which reveals that "larger loans, automation and a focus on retaining customers are hallmarks of successful banks".

November 2005 Cheryl Yaeger, President, outlines the importance of accurately measuring change initiative costs to generate desired results in "The Total Cost of Ownership--Effectively Measuring and Evaluating Change Initiatives".

November 7, 2005 issue of Home Equity News ran an article quoting practice executive Brian King stating, "Companies can gain the most [in savings and efficiency] from the origination side...More lenders are using automation to get decisions quicker and cheaper."

November 2005 BenchMark Consulting International Finalizes Results for CBA's 19th Annual Home Equity Lending Study.

November 2005 The evolution currently underway in sales financing and emergent partnering models is discussed in the article, "Partnerships in Auto Finance Originations".

October 2005 Brian King, Consumer Lending and Mortgage Banking practice executive, discusses how BenchMark's consulting and benchmarking services can help clients to improve performance at the 92nd Annual MBA Convention and Expo on October 23 - 26 in Orlando.

October 2005 John O'Connor, Commercial Lending practice executive, co-presented a session entitled, "Portfolio Management - Looking for Growth and Managing Risk" at the 10th annual American Banker/RMA Small Business Conference on October 26 - 28 in Dallas.

October 2005 J. Brian King joins BenchMark as the practice executive for Consumer Lending and Mortgage Banking. Brian possesses more than 15 years of experience in the financial services industry. Prior to joining BenchMark, King was the national sales manager for a division of Wolters Kluwer Financial Services. King 's previous roles also include senior vice president of business development at Wachovia Bank, and director of product development and marketing at Home Equity USA, a division of FleetBoston Financial.