$24B Eastern Bank selects Backbase

Boston-based Eastern Bank announced last week that it has partnered with digital banking platform provider Backbase to provide enhanced digital account opening for consumer and commercial customers.

The $24 billion bank will leverage Backbase’s fintech integrations to create personalized customer experiences and reduce friction in account opening, along with providing access to new banking services. The partnership will impact customer experience significantly, Donald Westermann, Eastern Bank’s executive vice president and chief information officer, said in the announcement.

“We are excited to join with Backbase in delivering an experience that we expect to truly revolutionize how new customers interact with our banking services, products and teams from the get-go,” Westermann said.

Eastern Bank plans to offer Backbase’s Digital Sales tools to new customers in the first half of 2022, with a comparable commercial banking product going live later in the year.

CSI’s NuPoint selected by Alabama community bank

Computer Services Inc’s. (CSI) NuPoint core platform has been selected to consolidate Red Bay, Ala.-based Community Spirit Bank’s technology into a single platform, the bank announced this week.

The $177 million community bank experienced “inefficiencies” with its previous core and partnered with Paducah, Ky.-based core provider CSI to provide a streamlined customer offering across its digital channels, according to the announcement. The partnership will allow the bank to further advance its digital services, bank President and Chief Executive Brad Bolton said in a release.

“As we advance our technology to meet the needs of our community, it is important that we do so with a provider whose values align with ours,” Bolton said. The partnership will eliminate in-house complexities for the bank and will also support the implementation of interactive teller machines.

Intapp partners with Microsoft to expedite cloud adoption

Cloud software provider Intapp announced Tuesday that it has partnered with Microsoft to ramp up cloud adoption by financial services partners.

Intapp will leverage Microsoft Azure as its main platform for delivering cloud solutions to financial service partners using artificial intelligence (AI) and Microsoft product integrations to provide data insights for private capital, investment banking and consulting firms. The move will align data and software for industry professionals, Intapp CEO John Hall said in a release.

“Partnering with Microsoft supercharges our ability to equip every professional with easy access to the information they need by aligning our industry-specific solutions with the software they use every day,” Hall said.

ACBB taps Aptys for multichannel payments platform

Lemoyne, Pa.-based Atlantic Community Bankers Bank (ACBB) announced today it has chosen payments fintech Aptys’ PayLOGICS platform as its digital payments solutions provider.

The fintech will facilitate improved digital payments for the $733 million bank, including mobile peer-to-peer payments (P2P) and automated clearinghouse (ACH) and Fed wires. The unified platform will also allow ACBB to customize operations for its clients and access a digital archive with consolidated payment data. Key to the partnership for the bank is efficiency, Craig Howie, bank president and CEO, said in the announcement.

“Its solutions better serve our community bank customers by providing a fully automated, seamless payment processing experience. Additionally, it saves us money and is more efficient,” Howie said.

Dubai-based Mashreq Bank and Israeli fintech ThetaRay partner for cross-border transactions

Emirati bank Mashreq Bank announced last week that it will leverage Israeli fintech ThetaRay’s AI and machine learning capabilities for cross-border transactions.

The partnership was aided by the 2020 Abraham Accords, an agreement that softened relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, among other countries. Mashreq Bank will use ThetaRay’s technology to ensure secure cross-border payments.

“ThetaRay’s technology, underpinned by advanced machine learning-based models complementing rules, sets the foundation for next-generation transaction monitoring,” Scott Ramsay, Mashreq Bank head of compliance, said in a statement.

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