Financing and Capital Markets

[Brian Orth] I think the most rewarding thing about my job or what keeps me going to work every day is bringing new ideas to my customers, whether they pursue them or not, bringing thoughts and ideas or options to them that they might not have previously known or explored.

[transition copy] As a Relationship Manager at SunTrust, Brian Orth works closely with governments and municipalities to help them forge relationships to find solutions for their communities. 

[Orth] Keeping up with technology is a key priority for local governments almost in a productivity perspective. They have a fixed amount of employees. It's very difficult for them to hire more and to put on that expense. And so, the utilization of the employees they have is very important and finding ways to do things more efficiently without incorporating a large additional cost is important.

I think one of the biggest opportunities for most municipalities that I interact with to streamline processes and to increase productivity would be the use of a purchase card, for example.

A lot of municipalities have, like, 37 days to pay people, but yet they’ll run checks every week. I more try to push them to utilizing their role, say, "We will pay you with a purchasing card tomorrow, but if you want a check—because we're going away from issuing checks—that's going to be 30-35 days," whatever your policy allows.

And when you start doing that, you give people a method to get paid quickly and then you reduce the number of checks because people are going to go towards the method that gets them paid the quickest.

[transition copy] Failing to Adapt Means Losing Time and Money

[Orth] The primary benefit of using a card—a purchasing card, that is—for a municipality would be the rebate. It is basically giving municipalities money back on money they're already spending. It's just a matter of time before the purchasing card is the norm. So you either get on early and kind of it's a part of how you do things, or you're basically going to be coming to the game late and changing things, but you are going to change. Ultimately that’s where payments are going.

[transition copy] Know Your Options for Fighting Fraud

Local governments face fraud in a lot of ways. These are entities that have been around a long time. We bring out merchants sometimes with our municipal customers and have them look at their merchant statements, make sure they're getting a good and fair deal. In essence, they're funded one time. When you tell them to fund, you know, then the balance goes from zero to $100. And then you call the vendor and say, "Okay. That card's good. Take your payment." And then it goes back down to zero. So that card can't be used for fraudulent purposes 99 percent of the time.

[transition copy] Bankers Should Be Partners

[Orth] The best tool our bank can provide our local government clients in addressing their challenges is access to information, quite honestly.

I hope I'm a partner to my customers in my role at SunTrust in just advising them on the options that are out there. I often tell my customers that at SunTrust, we’re a purpose-led organization and our purpose is to the light the way to financial well-being.

I will remind them that we’re providing a process that helps them do things better, provides them advice, that educates them, aside from other governmental entities and how they look at it, educating them from a banking perspective on how we look at it. And provide a financial purpose for what they’re doing.