Glenwood company's software to be highlighted at national ag meeting

More than 2,000 employees of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency will be in Omaha Monday to receive instruction on how to use new agricultural lending software provided by a Glenwood-based company, ECI.

Implementation of the specialized programming is considered to be one of the most significant changes within the FSA since the agency was created in the 1930s, with the new system intended to upgrade the operations of more than 100,000 agricultural producers across the country.

Called Web Equity Manager®, the ECI software has been designed to improve administration of the FSA's $16 billion loan portfolio.

The software, to be used by community banks and credit unions in the United States and Canada, was selected by the FSA because the programming allows lenders and loan recipients to be connected electronically, thus helping lower costs and manage risk more effectively.

The FSA's ultimate goal with Web Equity Manager®, said Gary Kruse, chairman and chief executive officer of ECI, "is for multiple government agencies to securely operate within the same system as banks, farm credits, regulators and other key lending industry players to significantly reduce the time and expense associated with gathering, analyzing and exchanging program participant information."

He said one of the key objectives for Web Equity Manager® in the FSA environment is to empower producers to complete their farm business plans on the Web and submit them electronically to the service center.

This procedure, he noted, will enhance the capabilities of service center employees to assist producers in completing business plans.

Steve Rubin, head of the initiative at the FSA to implement Web-based processes, said officials at the agency "knew we had to start running our financing programs like the rest of the financial analysis industry, including standardizing our use of things like farm financial standards ratios, accrual analysis and the like.

He said Web Equity Manager® is "not simply a replacement for the existing farm and home plan software, but a system that USDA and other government agencies can expand upon into the future."

According to Rubin, farm and home plan and guaranteed loan programs will be the initial sectors in which the Web Equity Manager® standardized analysis and information management platform will be utilized.

The Web-based forms and procedures in Web Equity Manager®, he said, "will satisfy our long-term goals for sharing automated tools such as government loan programs with participants. This is a far-reaching initiative that goes way beyond the exchange of information between the producer, lenders and FSA."

Web Equity Manager® calculates a complete financial analysis on any loan type, from the simplest loan request to the most complex agricultural and related small business application, by utilizing the farm financial standards ratios and industry comparisons.

Credit bureau reports can be pulled from within the Web Equity Manager® system, and lenders can include that information in their scoring and rating parameters.

Web Equity Manager® accommodates the analysis and processing of agricultural, small business and consumer loan requests all in the same system.

It is specifically designed to enable lenders to boost productivity through easier and more reliable financial analysis computing, and to lower technology and maintenance costs through operation in a Web-based environment that is always accessible via an Internet connection and Web browser.

ECI is a privately-owned company that was founded in 1985 in Glenwood as a financial consulting firm, assisting both lenders and farmers preparing guaranteed loan applications with what was then the Farmers Home Administration.

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