The ball has dropped and after a countless number of bowl games it is time to start fresh and look to the new year and challenges and opportunities that lie ahead. As we reflect on 2011, we are grateful for over 150 financial institutions that we depend upon as customers. 18 new financial institutions were welcomed aboard in the last year. We continue to earn and maintain our client relationships because quite simply we are a different kind of software company than those that we compete against.
I am not a follower of Zodiac signs but I was reminded by my son who is home from college that in Chinese Astrology this is the Year of the Dragon, which begins on January 23rd. Out of curiosity and likely boredom from watching bowl games, I looked up the meaning of this particular zodiac sign. What I found was that this sign shares many of the characteristics we hold in our company as we develop and deliver software to the community financial institution market. Dragons, I learned, prefer to live by their own rules are driven, unafraid of challenges, and willing to take risks. They are passionate in all that they do. At Suntell, we are passionate about our desire to provide community financial institutions with a more efficient approach to commercial and agricultural lending and credit risk management. This has stemmed from my personal mission and passion from 30 years of working with community financial institutions, providing both software and consulting to support stronger lending practices and policies which leads to stronger asset quality and earnings.
At Suntell, like the Dragon, we are different because we live by our own rules. While most of our competitors are larger companies, we believe the larger you are the less nimble and more bureaucratic decision making becomes. As a result, product and service suffers. We pride ourselves on being nimble, responsive and affordable. We can do this because we focus only on community financial institutions like yours and we focus on only one mission – credit risk and loan document management workflow solutions. Because we are different, we rely heavily on the word of mouth of satisfied customer rather than expensive advertising. Your continued referrals, testimonials or references about the Square 1 Credit Suite are very much appreciated. I want to wish you a strong and successful 2012 – the year we all strive to be ‘Dragons’!!
Thank you for your business and loyal patronage.
Duane Lankard
CEO
