Digital banking platform Narmi recently teamed up with Northrim Bank as the fintech pushes its new agentic AI tool that automates and accelerates account opening processes.  

Narmi expects the tool, called AI Decision Assist, to yield “drastic reductions in time spent” reviewing applications and “more time spent on other value-added tasks” by analyzing customer information, assessing risk, maintaining audit logs and generating recommendations, co-founder Nikhil Lakhanpal told FinAi News.

The AI agent’s recommendations are rooted in decisions that bank employees have made “hundreds of times” based on internal policies and data, he said. 

Early results show that AI Decision Assist, which launched last month, can boost approval rates by as much as 6% while cutting manual review times from hours to minutes, according to Narmi’s release.  

Anchorage, Alaska-based Northrim Bank was drawn to Narmi in part because it “saw the benefit of AI being deployed at every single part of the platform in a scalable way,” Lakhanpal said.  

“When a bank like Northrim is being tech-forward and digitally aggressive, they want their partners to step up as well,” he said, adding that the $3.4 billion bank also sought a more unified digital banking experience. 

Narmi’s knowledge of FIS IBS — a core banking software used to manage daily operations, accounts, transactions and third-party tech integrations — also appealed to the bank, Northrim Chief Information Officer Nathan Reed said in a July 29 Narmi release.  

Other financial institutions that use Narmi include: 

• Arrowhead Credit Union; 

• CTBC Bank; 

• First Internet Bank; 

• Grasshopper Bank; 

• Mocse Credit Union; 

• NBH Bank; and  

• University Federal Credit Union.  

Scalable agentic AI  

Narmi is devoting “a huge level of effort and investment” into its API-first infrastructure so that it can continuously layer AI onto its platform for customer- and staff-facing applications, Lakhanpal said. 

Narmi and its FI partners are positioned to “scalably build [AI] agents,” he said, stressing the importance of audit logging and clear visibility into agentic behaviors.  

With AI Decision Assist, the fintech recognized that it can train agents quickly while maintaining compliance, setting the stage for more agentic deployment, he said. 

Essentially, the tool was an “initial R&D cost” that “allows my team — no matter what product they’re working on — to build agents with that underlying infrastructure,” Lakhanpal said. 

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