BancVue is partnering with MoneyDesktop and strengthening its mobile offerings to help community banks compete with bigger rivals.

Kasasa is the product for which BancVue is primarily known. Kasasa is a suite of accounts that community banks and credit unions can offer, such as savings accounts and rewards and loyalty programs on checking accounts. Marketing is also part of the Kasasa product set, because many small banks and credit unions have no dedicated marketing staff.

BancVue built its own PFM product, Kasasa 360, which allowed customers to view all their accounts in one place. Next quarter, BancVue will fold in MoneyDesktop‘s PFM solution and phase out its own.

“It was obvious their PFM was better than our PFM,” BancVue CEO Gabe Krajicek said.

The move frees up the Kasasa team to focus on rewards and marketing, and to leave the data integration and PFM to MoneyDesktop.

“We will see some installs in early 2014,” he said. “It has been working smoothly. It’s a great cultural fit.”

Installs are being tested now, he added.

BancVue will also launch tablet applications and expanded mobile websites in early 2014.

Krajicek believes community banks must pool resources in order to stay competitive with larger banks. “It’s a trend we’ve seen for some time that’s becoming a common belief [among community bankers]” Krajicek said. “Together, Kasasa banks are the 11th largest bank network in the country by number of branches, and we’ll hit the Top 10 in Q1 2014.”

Banks are not known for cooperating, but that is what BancVue asks them to do. BancVue’s programs allow small banks to compete in marketing and rewards with their super-regional and national competitors, according to Krajicek. It does mean that they have less differentiation from other Kasasa banks, however, but compromises must be made in the name of survival.

Community banks have it tough. Not only are compliance burdens intimidating and growing all the time, but media pundits are gunning for small banks, saying there are too many of them and they serve no purpose.

Krajicek vehemently disagrees. His company’s purpose is to “preserve community banking and help them have a credible chance of competing against the megabanks.” This may seem pointless if community banks are poorly managed and unable to compete, as Slate’s Matthew Yglesias argues.

“The smallest 10% of banks make 40% of the small business loans, and small businesses provide 87% of the jobs,” Krajicek said. “They’re the organs of growth in communities across the country.”

Krajicek speaks from experience. A community bank in Tennessee made him a loan he was unable to get from larger banks that ultimately saved his business and allowed him to move funds into BancVue, which he joined in 2005.

It’s a tall order. Study after study shows it is difficult to convince customers to switch banks. But increased marketing muscle and robust rewards programs could at least give them a fighting chance to get noticed. BancVue’s increased attention to mobile is a crucial piece, as well.

“Bankers get coopetition now,” Krajicek said. “It’s the lifeblood of Kasasa.”