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Orange County Teachers Federal Credit Union Reduces Training Costs and Increases Job Proficiency With OutStart Studio

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Business Wire
April 12, 2005

BOSTON -- Training is completed 75 percent faster, resulting in an average savings of $4,000 per course

OutStart, the leading provider of systems for learning and knowledge-sharing, today announced that Orange County Teachers Federal Credit Union (OCTFCU), the fifth largest credit union in the United States, has selected OutStart Studio to quickly create, manage and deploy training to employees throughout the company. OCTFCU is saving over $200,000 per year on compliance training costs in addition to managing compliance requirements and increasing overall customer satisfaction.

Due to the nature of its business, OCTFCU continuously needs to adhere to compliance issues stemming from the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the USA Patriot Act, requiring the credit union to provide related training to its employees. Historically, this was accomplished through a lengthy, manual process that consisted of course development, classroom and employee scheduling, grading tests, collecting evaluation sheets and tracking attendance. To alleviate this time intensive process, OCTFCU chose OutStart Studio to quickly create, manage and deploy e-learning content throughout the company. Since implementing Studio, OCTFCU has been able to reduce training time from an average of four months per course to one month per course.

In addition, Studio's assessment capabilities provide OCTFCU managers insight into employee's knowledge gaps, allowing OCTFCU to make changes to courses and tests to improve employees learning and performance while keeping them motivated to learn.

"Studio enabled us to revamp our curriculum, eliminate administrative inefficiencies and enable time-sensitive learning that improves the way we do business," said Chris Johnson, the Credit Union's E-Learning Specialist. "As a result of using Studio, not only have we benefited from a significant cost and time savings, but customer surveys have improved dramatically over the past several months, particularly in the category of employee knowledge. In fact, we have been so pleased with the results, we are also using Studio to create training content for employees in other areas such as new product and service offerings.

OutStart's portfolio of products and solutions connect people with the training, information, and know-how that they need to perform their jobs more effectively. Organizations have many different needs and channels involved when it comes to capturing and transferring knowledge. For that reason, OutStart has developed industry-defining offerings that leverage and blend the best of both structured training and knowledge-sharing.

"As financial institutions increasingly adopt new technologies for mandatory compliance training and competitive advancement, it is vital to streamline the training process in a way that enables employees to quickly and easily progress through job proficiency levels," said OutStart CEO Massood Zarrabian. "OutStart's Studio is uniquely suited for mid-market financial services organizations required to maintain a highly trained staff that is productive and knowledgeable."

About OCTFCU

OCTFCU has been a partner in the educational community since 1934. As a full-service financial institution, it is the fifth largest credit union in the United States, with more than 300,000 Members, over $5 billion in assets and 18 locations to serve its members.

About OutStart

OutStart software powers solutions that help make people more effective in a fraction of the time and cost. Unlike traditional training or knowledge management approaches that take too long, cost too much and fail to address the entire need, OutStart's applications address the way people learn through a combination of formal training, knowledge sharing and expert collaboration that is available on-demand. Customers like Empire BlueCross BlueShield, Cisco Systems, Steelcase, the U.S. Navy, Verizon, and Westland Helicopters rely on OutStart to increase individual and organizational performance, improve knowledge transfer, and lower operating costs. Headquartered in Boston, Mass., OutStart has offices throughout the US and Europe and can be found on the Web at www.outstart.com.

What are people saying about mortgages today:

Rates on 30-year mortgages edged down last week to a seven-month low. Mortgage-giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages fell to 6.3 percent, down slightly from 6.31 percent two weeks ago. It put rates at the lowest level since they were at 6.24 percent the first week of March.

Bank of Hawaii, Central Pacific Bank, Territorial Savings Bank and Wells Fargo Home Mortgages all cut their 30-year mortgage rates to 5.75 percent this week.

Most people think of a mortgage as a means to an end. After all, you buy a house, not a home loan. But a mortgage is much more than the path to homeownership. It is a financial instrument that must be managed, just like any other financial investment.