Just three months after launching its digital bank and Midwest BankCentre is working on significantly expanding the venture’s range of services.

Digital-only Rising Bank was launched by Midwest BankCentre in February after a year of planning.

Now Midwest is developing a consumer loan product, a small business loan product, bill-pay capabilities, and a standalone mobile app for Rising Bank, all to be launched within the next 18 months.

“We want to create a comprehensive digital bank for a complete and seamless customer experience,” said bank CEO Orvin Kimbrough.

Since its launch, Rising Bank has generated $60 million in deposits, “effectively in about 12 weeks,” Kimbrough said. “Our annual goal was to hit about $100 million in deposits. We are, obviously, thrilled.”

With over $1.4 billion in deposits, Midwest BankCentre had no digital presence until Rising Bank.

“Customers couldn’t even open an account with us online,” Kimbrough said. “Our strategy was to build a digital-only brand while maintaining the physical aspect of community banking. We have adopted a ‘human-digital’ strategy.”

The human-digital strategy is a popular route for community and regional banks, which thrive on interpersonal bank-customer relationships. Regional bank Umpqua Bank of Portland, Ore., has followed this strategy for a number years. Most recently, Umpqua CEO Cort O’Haver spoke about it at the Bank Innovation Ignite conference last March.

Also Read: BI Ignite 2019: Umpqua’s Go-To Platform Moving to a 24/7 Service, CEO Says

There was a second, equally important reason for Midwest BankCentre to set up a digital-only brand.

“If we can stand up this new digital brand, successfully,” he said. “If we are effective in improving customer experience, cutting our operational costs, driving deposits … if we can prove that this technology works, then it’s easier to migrate those efficiencies to the Midwest BankCentre at large.”

Unlike JPMorgan Chase‘s Finn or Goldman Sachs‘ Marcus, Rising Bank is not an independent spinoff, but rather a separate brand, under Midwest BankCentre. Rising Bank also operates under its parent’s banking charter.

From a cost perspective, this was the most viable model. A lack of financial resources was also the reason Midwest BankCentre opted for fintech partners, rather than creating Rising Bank in-house.

“We don’t have an IT budget that allows us to build new digital products, or modify our platforms,” Kimbrough said. “For small community banks, in general, I don’t know how they could build something like this totally in-house.”

So, for the process, Midwest partnered with a number of fintechs to develop different parts of Rising Bank. Those partnerships include: Mantl, a New York-based digital account opening platform provider; Synechron, an IT consulting firm, to build the website; New York-based Xaxis for marketing the brand; and Alloy for building KYC and fraud components, among others.

Midwest BankCentre uses Jack Henry as its core-processor and is currently using Banno, Jack Henry’s platform for community banks. It is also on queue to receive P2P payments service Zelle, for both brands.

Based in St. Louis, Midwest BankCentre has more than $1.9 billion in assets and $1.4 billion in deposits, making it one of the largest locally-owned banks in the area.