BOCA RATON, Fla. ― UniBank knows how to work its core.

The Whitinsville, Mass.-based bank has started to convert its core banking system, Bank Innovation has learned.

“We haven’t changed yet,” said Ryan Buckley, chief innovation officer, during a conference held in Boca Raton, Fla., in March. “We’re walking into an 18-month conversion.”

Though Buckley said his research indicates that the new technology will be “much better” than what’s in place today, for the near-term, he recognizes work life will become much more labor intensive.

“I’ve been told I’ll be miserable for one-and-a-half years,” Buckley said.

Because the conversion will require its staff to work longer hours, UniBank’s management has begun recognizing “weekly” heroes and rewarding each one with a bottle of wine.

“We have been doing a good job at managing the team,” Buckley said. “You cannot have miserable people working their fingers to the bone.”

UniBank has nine branches in Massachusetts.

CFPB IS COMING TO TOWN

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will examine TCF Financial Corp., a Wayzata, Minn.-based bank holding company, in September.

“They say they are most interested in our disclosures,” said William Cooper, chairman and chief executive, during a keynote. “That remains to be seen.”

The new regulator examining banks is only the beginning of added compliance burdens for the industry, though.

“Regulations have never gotten smaller in my whole life,” Cooper said.

As new and tighter regulations drain banks of revenue and resources, Cooper said he believes banks will have to merge with one another to cover the costs.

Separately, Cooper also revealed that his most profitable bank branches are the ones located in supermarkets.

TCF has $19 billion in total assets and 434 branches in Minnesota, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, Wisconsin, Indiana, Arizona and South Dakota. TCF provides retail and commercial banking services.

IN MOBILE BANKING, AGE MIGHT NOT MATTER

Mobile banking is deepening consumers’ connections to their FIs.

“Customers become more engaged when they mobile bank,” said Mark Warshawsky, senior vice president of mobile channel planning and design executive at Bank of America.

And though conventional banking thinking suggests younger consumers are the only ones using mobile banking services, the second largest bank by assets has discovered otherwise.

Users of the channel pull across all demographics, Warshawsky said, including its high net worth clients.

CAN YOU IDENTIFY ME NOW?

AT&T is marketing a new geo-fencing service to financial institutions that aims to help them reduce card fraud.

The new service works like this: When a consumer makes a transaction at the checkout counter, his cellphone will be pinged to determine the phone’s location. If the card is present with the cellphone, the threat of fraud in that particular transaction is minute. The aim of the offering is to help issuers know the shopper is who he says he is. Consumers must opt-in to use the program, Chris Thompson, lead market manager of financial services at AT&T, tells Bank Innovation.

Locaid offers banks a similar service.