Alerus Financial, a Grand Forks, N.D.-based institution with more than $2.3 billion in assets, is providing customers with comprehensive financial wellness scores through a partnership with Fiserv. 

“If a client is going to be able to manage their financial well-being, they need to see their entire picture,” said Jon Hendry, chief information officer at Alerus. “What we needed to do then, when we get to the technology side of things, is open up our systems and allow them to talk to each other.”

The wellness score solution, called “My Alerus,” launched at the end of 2019. It runs on open-banking API technology from Fiserv that aggregates customers’ accounts to provide a full view of their financial health. 

My Alerus pulls data from all accounts customers have with the bank, such as credit cards, mortgages and savings, to determine how prepared customers are for something like retirement or an emergency. The platform offers a variety of financial services, including retirement planning, wealth management, mortgages and business banking on top of normal retail banking functions. Customers can link outside accounts to My Alerus. The bank uses Envestnet Yodlee for data aggregation. 

So far 100,000 of Alerus’ 350,000 customers have enrolled in My Alerus, according to Hendry. He added that the goal with My Alerus is for customers to engage more with the bank to learn how they can improve their financial health after seeing their scores.

Many banks launch online accounts or banking systems through ready-made solutions from tech vendors, according to John Gomes, director of solution strategy at Fiserv, and this often translates to a sea of sameness. “The user experience you have is the user experience you have,” he said. “You can certainly brand it or change colors, but the reality is it’s pretty fixed.”

Alerus took a different approach. According to Gomes, the bank “ripped the top off” Fiserv’s technology so Alerus could build its own user experience on top of the underlying engine. This ensured the bank was in control of the final product despite using APIs and the software development kit from Fiserv. 

See also: Fiserv launches AI banking assistant

Account aggregation and personal finance management is a growing trend among both banks and fintechs. M&T Bank and Citi, for example, both offer account aggregation tools, as do fintechs like Mint and Emma. Ron Shevlin, director of research at Cornerstone Advisors, wrote in a 2018 blog post that while consumers often say they want a single place to manage their finances, it often isn’t the deciding factor when consumers decide on a new checking account. “That’s been the problem with PFM and account aggregation — people express interest in these capabilities, but their actual behaviors don’t align with their attitudes and intentions,” he wrote. 

Alerus’ future plans include improving money movement capabilities, and creating an online document management center and self-serve functions for changing information like email addresses and phone numbers. “We have a roadmap for [My Alerus], and we’re continuing to improve it,” Hendry said.

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