Jack Henry Lending, the automated lending arm of the core solutions provider, announced Wednesday the addition of the Bank of Charles Town to its community bank portfolio. The deal focuses on loan origination, analysis, review and management at the $700 million W.Va.-based bank.

“We chose Jack Henry because their all-digital loan origination system (LOS), LoanVantage, provides a comprehensive solution which will allow BCT to better serve our customer base,” Bank of Charles Town Vice President Anthony Ranghelli told Bank Automation News. “Certain loans will qualify for automatic decisioning, which will allow for quicker decisions and access to funds.”

The transformation from manual back-end lending processes to streamlined core-enabled functionality is central for Charles Town, which has struggled with laborious loan processing in the past. Enhanced customer-facing capabilities will allow individual and commercial customers to apply for and manage loans while also enabling lenders to make informed credit risk decisions.

“The back-end will have a workflow engine to assign work to the appropriate lending and credit teams for faster workflow. The solution also has interfaces to pull credit and other important information required for decisioning,” Ranghelli said. “The completeness that LoanVantage provides will allow us to streamline processes resulting in our customers gaining faster access to capital to meet their needs.”

Old Missouri Bank partners with Jack Henry for digital banking

Springfield, Mo.-based Old Missouri Bank also announced Wednesday that it will partner with Jack Henry to develop its digital banking build, which is set to launch in early 2023.

The bank chose Jack Henry in part for its ability to integrate with other Jack Henry offerings, such as the Banno Digital Platform or jXchange, as well as outside fintechs. “Jack Henry gives us the scale, infrastructure and openness we need to build a well-rounded and competitive portfolio to meet very ambitious growth goals,” Stephen Bishop, chief operating officer at the bank, said in a release.

The $740 million Old Missouri Bank will also utilize Jack Henry’s lending, payment and deposit solutions.

Sygnum grabs $90M in series B funding round

Switzerland and Singapore-based crypto giant Sygnum announced Thursday it raised $90 million in a series B funding round, shooting the company to an $800 million valuation and moving it closer to unicorn status.

The firm, which has assets under administration of $2 billion, will use the funds to develop peer-to-peer Web 3.0 products and further its global market stake.

“The digital asset economy is rapidly crossing the chasm to mainstream adoption where investors will demand fully-regulated solutions as they accelerate their exposure,” Mathias Imbach, Sygnum co-founder and group CEO said in a statement. “This financing round is a key milestone in our global expansion.”

The funding round was led by Hong Kong-based alternative investment firm Sun Hung Kai and Co. Limited, with Meta Investments, Animoca Brands and WeMade as investing partners.

Barclays selects Hewlett Packard Enterprise for cloud solution

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently announced that it will supply its GreenLake cloud solution to international bank Barclays, providing automated edge-to-cloud capabilities for global customers.

“Our customers expect an intelligent, contextual and personalized digital experience with seamless performance,” Craig Bright, chief information officer at Barclays, said in a release. “With HPE GreenLake, we’re building a cloud platform that will enable the agility and operational performance needed to achieve this ambition while providing a modern economic model for private cloud.”

The platform will host more than 100,000 workloads for the $1.91 trillion global bank, ranging from virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to SQL databases, and will be migrated from legacy frameworks to the private cloud by HPE Pointnext with assistance from Barclays.

Agent IQ launches digital assistant for Texas bank

Financial machine learning and chatbot provider Agent IQ announced Wednesday that it has partnered with its first financial institution in Texas, where it will launch its Lynq digital assistant and chat service with Extraco Banks.

Lynq — which contains augmented intelligence, an automation tool for bankers and tellers which decreases workload and manhours for simple tasks — will give customers a personalized digital banking experience.

“Agent IQ’s Lynq platform provides a transformational approach to meeting our customers where they are,” Chris Kincaid, Extraco Banks executive vice president, said in a release.

Deals and Dollars is a weekly Bank Automation News column that features fintech funding rounds and the technology dealings of financial institutions. Submissions may be sent for consideration to editorial@royalmedia.com.

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