The inability to reach someone outside of business hours is a source of friction for some digital bank customers, but Rising Bank wants to set itself apart through one-on-one attention. 

Rising Bank, which is Midwest BankCentre’s digital-only brand, goes to pains to ensure customers get routed to a real person, even if the CEO is the only one available to address the inquiry. 

“On a holiday weekend when one of our Rising Bank customers locked themselves out of their account, they called in and were given the cell phone number of our CEO,” explained Dale Oberkfell, president of Rising Bank and chief financial officer of Midwest BankCentre. “We are designed to be responsive.”

Rising Bank was launched a year ago as a means for Midwest BankCentre to reach younger customers and grow its deposit base, according to Oberkfell. Since then, the digital-only brand has hit $150 million in deposits, a milestone the bank said was possible through low-cost products and services, a user-friendly digital interface, a fintech partnership strategy designed to drive efficiency and the availability of humans 24/7. 

St. Louis, Mo.-based Midwest BankCentre, which is privately held, has 17 locations and $2 billion in assets.

“Younger demographics are getting harder for a community bank to attract, and so, how can we do that in the digital space where they seem to live and work,” Oberkfell said. “We built this brand and I think of it as a laboratory.”

Rising Bank’s product trajectory resembles other digital-only banking brands, but with the backing of a licensed institution. It initially rolled out high-yield savings accounts and certificates of deposit; in the third quarter of last year it launched checking accounts. This year, Rising Bank will add loans through a partnership with Blend, and it intends to partner with three to six additional lending fintechs as part of its effort to experiment.

See also: Digital-Only Rising Bank to Add Several Products, Services Within 18 Months

“Our goal is to try and create and learn how to do that business so that ultimately whatever we learn in that space, so we can migrate to [Midwest BankCentre] and take advantage of efficiencies,” Oberkfell said.

He did not break down the demographics of Rising Bank’s customers but acknowledged that they are, on average, younger than customers of the mothership. Rising Bank seeks to attract customers at the early stages of their financial lives, a point at which the bank can begin its relationship with them and gain their trust.

“I would describe the customer set as “optimizers.” They’re all just trying to do a little bit better than maybe what they think they can do with the bank they have other account relationships with,” Oberkfell said. “We focused on the deposit side because that was the easy side; now we got to go to the asset side and make those customers more sticky.”

On technology, while Rising Bank uses Jack Henry’s Silverlake core operating system, partnering with fintechs helps draw additional efficiencies and user experience advantages. The bank works with 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; and Alloy for building KYC and fraud components. 

The bank tapped consulting firm XpertSavers to develop its fintech partnership strategy. “I think of XpertSavers as the quarterback as we rolled this out,” said Oberkfell.

Rising Bank has set an ambitious target of $100 million in net new deposits this year. Oberkfell said the bank doesn’t rule out the possibility of folding Rising Bank into Midwest BankCentre, but the focus now is on creating a differentiated brand proposition for Rising Bank.

Evolving digital offerings is important for Midwest Bank’s long-term sustainability, particularly since community banks face multiple pressure points in the market.

“We’re already being peeled off every day by Starbucks cards; [retail cards] are peeling off billions of dollars out of the financial institution space [and] fintechs now produce 27% of all small business loans digitally,” Oberkfell said. “We want to be relevant in the next 20 years, which means we have to compete in that space and get our fair share.”

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