Horicon Bank in digital tech revamp with Malauzai
New project for Malauzai at Horicon Bank
Horicon Bank, a community bank with $680 million in assets and 15 branches in the US state of Wisconsin, has implemented a new digital banking platform for retail and business customers.
The bank worked with domestic digital banking tech specialist Malauzai on the project, as well as with its long-standing core banking software provider Finastra (formerly D+H).
The “digital transformation” was led by Horicon’s CIO, Mark Nelson. It was done in stages, with the online and mobile banking platform for retail customers launched in January 2018, and the business platform to follow this summer.
Malauzai’s solution has been interfaced to Horicon’s core banking system, Fusion Phoenix.
Also, the bank says it has recently completed a successful pilot of its new payments solution for businesses, HB Pay, which will be available for business customers later this month.
“I recognised we needed an advanced digital banking solution, we needed to digitally transform our self-service channels,” Nelson comments.
“Consumers are going to get a great set of new features and advancements. In addition, businesses are going to benefit with an offering that scales from a smartphone to the desktop. We service a lot of small business owners that work in the agricultural community, and they have unique banking needs,” he explains.
“We evaluated customer needs in advance to understand how they would actually use the solution, what features added the most value and what was missing from other solutions in the market. Having a sophisticated business offering is a huge competitive advantage.”
The offering includes a user-friendly interface for desktop internet banking and native mobile banking apps for smartphones, electronic statements, bill pay, cheque imaging, remote deposit capture (RDC), and expanded digital alerts delivered via push notification, text and email.
Additionally, customers have access to financial management and budgeting tools that can be used across both personal and business accounts. Business owners will also have access to a treasury management system that facilitates payment processing, as well as other tools to more effectively manage funds, receivables, payables and cash flow in a timely manner.
Horicon believes the new technology will help the bank to “transform the local business community and lead them into the digital future”.
Quite an interesting approach for a mid-tier bank – using best-of-breed solutions driven by an open architecture core – to satisfy what apparently was a first-step exercise of nailing down customer needs. You can expect clear thinking from the Heartland.
Disclaimer: I never heard of Horicon Bank and I had nothing to do with this project.