(Source: PrimeNewswire)
UNION, N.J., Sept. 23, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Center Bancorp, Inc. (Nasdaq:CNBC), parent company of Union Center National Bank (UCNB), today announced that the Corporation has signed a strategic outsourcing agreement with Fiserv (Nasdaq:FISV) to provide core account processing services which is consistent with the Company's other strategic initiatives to streamline operations, reduce operating overhead and allow the Company to focus on core competencies of customer service and product development. This coupled with previously initiated cost reduction plans are expected to improve operating efficiencies, business and technical operations.
This will complete the final phase of our business plans to refocus internal operations to customer and product support while streamlining infrastructure, which began with a strategic assessment of an outsourcing initiative with Fiserv in March 2008.
The core processing transition will take place in the fourth quarter of 2009 and upon completion IT infrastructure services, application support and maintenance, transactional services and support services will access the Fiserv data center in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Fiserv will provide financial technology solutions as the Company's complete outsourced core account processing provider.
The strategic outsourcing agreement underscores the Company's efforts in times of increasing margin challenges, in part attributed to current economic environment, to continue to improve operating efficiencies without sacrificing the service or competitive advantages it maintains in its markets. UCNB sought a trusted, national, and financially stable technology provider which would allow this transition to be seamless and Fiserv was the clear choice.
"Our current business arrangement with Fiserv has been a successful partnership and a key component of plans for our service platforms and internal structure. Enhancing this partnership through a third party arrangement is the right thing to do from a timing, technical and financial perspective. The Corporation briefly considered continuing to support itself internally but has realized through an intensive review, both with outside consultants and senior management, that this alternative continues to be too expensive, time consuming and distracts our resources from our core competency, which is providing high quality commercial banking services. This realization led us to incorporate this into our strategic plan for fiscal 2009," indicated Anthony C. Weagley, President & CEO.
Fiserv is the leading global provider of financial services technology solutions, and a market leader in the community banking sector.
