SAN DIEGO — The $800 million Farm Bureau Bank is boosting its current technology expenditure by as much as 15% as it modernizes its auto loan systems.

“We’re going to probably spend 15 times more than what we’re doing now, but I’m going to show where the savings are,” Chief Operations and Technology Officer Mark Cromer said during today’s Auto Finance Innovation Summit 2022.

Farm Bureau Bank spent $2.8 million on IT expenses, excluding personnel costs, Cromer told Bank Automation News. This was an increase of $600,000 over the previous year, primarily due to growing use of hosted services, he added.

Cromer shared details on how the bank’s auto finance team is updating its loan originations and other systems to automate and deploy an open architecture approach. The project’s goals include improving the member experience, increasing automation and expanding the auto finance market at bank, which is headquartered in Sparks, Nev.

Cost savings Cromer anticipated from the tech update are the reduction of the bank’s footprint of on-premise systems and the reallocation of the development team away from legacy applications to other projects.

“That is going to be a cost-benefit sales job but, once again, I go back to the fact that I’ve senior management on board with these strategies,” Cromer said.

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