A relationship built on preventing fraud
Whenever your business has a technology upgrade, or technology refresh, you might also be wondering: Is it enough to just erase the hard drives? Is there an alternative to dumping them in landfills?
With Oklahoma City-based CDR Global, Inc. at your side, you don’t have to worry about those questions—or have those old computers laying around. “At our core, we do electronics recycling and refurbishing—any type of office equipment, school equipment, hospital equipment, manufacturing, logistics,” said Mike Foley, director of operations.
Meet CDR Global, Inc.
Founded
In January 2003, Robert Brown and two partners formed CDR Global, Inc. The other partners have since been bought out and today Brown serves as CEO.
What they do
CDR Global recycles and refurbishes electronics. This includes securely destroying sensitive data, selling refurbishments in bulk and through e-commerce, facilitating electronics donations and running logistics nationwide (picking up electronics directly from the client). Additionally, CDR Global helps clients with managing and reporting electronic assets, preparing leases, decommissioning data centers and facilities, as well as new hire onboarding.
Global reach
Today, the company has clients in all 50 states, Canada, Europe, Central America, South America and Southeast Asia.
How CDR Global, Inc. has made its mark
They help reduce the amount of waste in landfills by recycling most of the electronics that go in their hands—either by refurbishing them and selling or donating them as full units, or by selling the parts as commodities. “The only thing that goes in the trash is trash,” Foley said.
“Anything that has electricity running through it, we've likely seen it, and we've probably seen every version of it you can think of for the last 30 years. We still get electronics that were manufactured back in the ‘70s,” he explained.
Around 35% of CDR Global’s clients are schools, and the rest are businesses, including BOK Financial® . So, it’s a reciprocal relationship: BOK Financial is a client of CDR Global for its computer recycling needs and CDR Global is a client of BOK Financial/Bank of Oklahoma for its financial services needs.
Business relationships begin in unlikely placesThe positive two-way business-client relationship that exists today started with a chance meeting at the gym between CDR Global CEO and Co-Founder Robert Brown and Jon Bartel, Bank of Oklahoma commercial banking market manager for Oklahoma City. (Bank of Oklahoma and BOK Financial are both affiliates of BOKF, NA.) At that time, CDR Global had already been taking care of BOK Financial’s computer recycling needs.
“Rob mentioned that they were having some problems on the cash management side, specifically with wire transfers,” Bartel recalled. “He was quizzing me on whether we could help with that, and it sounded like we could help quite a bit.”
Did you know?
The days of having to go into a branch for a wire transfer are over. “Many commercial clients don’t realize they can do a wire transfer online,” said Jon Bartel, a Bank of Oklahoma commercial banking market manager for Oklahoma City. “We can give clients the ability to execute domestic, international and foreign exchange wire transfers at their office.”
Contact your Bank of Oklahoma or BOK Financial commercial banking representative for more information.
Bartel immediately set to work examining CDR Global’s existing financial processes, including workarounds they had in place because of limitations with their current bank, and identifying processes that could be handled more efficiently. “The commercial banking online platform they were using at their previous bank had some serious limitations,” Bartel recalled.
In turn, one of Bank of Oklahoma’s capabilities that impressed CDR Global the most was ACH Positive Pay services, which helps protect businesses against fraud. “It used to be that anybody with your routing and account numbers could do ACH origination on you. If you didn't catch it in time, it was hard to get those funds back in a timely manner,” said Cliff Looney III, chief financial officer at CDR Global.
But that’s all changed with Positive Pay. “Nothing can be deducted from our bank account without an approval coming from accounting, if the number is outside of what we said it would be,” Looney said. “If it’s even a decimal out of place, it will kick it over for us to clear the exception, so it's very protective.”
Shortly after Bartel and Brown connected, it became clear that Bank of Oklahoma and CDR Global were aligned on more than financial services. Both companies share a relationship-oriented approach to business and a commitment to similar values.
For instance, both companies value the strength of a relationship with a client and, consequently, they will go above and beyond to meet a client's needs. In BOK Financial’s case, that means not pushing clients into a product or service that’s not in their best interest, just for the sake of getting a short-term revenue opportunity, Bartel said. In CDR Global’s case, going above and beyond literally means going that extra mile—driving across country to pick up a client’s electronics safely and securely, when the client wishes.
And that people-over-profits approach also positively influences the banker-client relationship between Bartel and CDR Global, helping to build more and more trust between the two.
“I'm a relationship person,” Brown said. “If there's anything that Jon ever needs, he does not hesitate to call me. He knows that and I know the same with him.”
“Rob’s got a lot of energy and is a fun guy to work with,” Bartel agreed. “We get to be a big part of his team. He puts a lot of trust in us and that helps us do our jobs effectively.
And in turn, that mutual trust helps CDR Global run its business more effectively.
"People talk about ‘Main Street banking’—about how it used to be a handshake to get business done. It's still there. You just have to have the right company and the right bank."
Robert Brown, CEO of CDR Global, Inc
What is positive pay?
Positive Pay services are one of the strongest defenses against check fraud available to your business. With Positive Pay, BOK Financial will match checks presented for payment against your account to the information—including check number, amount and payee—in your data file. Any checks that do not match what’s in your file then can be returned unpaid before a pre-established return deadline.
There also are additional types of Positive Pay services available, including:
- Payee Positive Pay: In addition to matching the checks presented for payment to the information in your data file, this service goes one step further and validates that the payee was not altered during the check collection process. Through the use of both Positive Pay and Payee Positive Pay, checks are validated at the teller line before cashing.
- Reverse Positive Pay: With this service, your business will receive a daily paid report that you can use to match against your issued checks. You can determine which checks to return and then notify us of those instructions through the Exchange Positive Pay module.
- ACHAlert Positive Pay: This service that allows you to control the ACH debit and/or credit transactions that post to your account, with options to always return or pay certain transactions.
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