Several community banks announced partnerships with AI providers this month as they prioritize compliance, operations and customer relationships.  

Despite challenges facing smaller instituions, 86% of community banks are optimistic about AI, according to technology provider CSI.  

Republic Bank of Chicago taps Sympera for business banking 

Republic Bank of Chicago announced May 12 that it had selected AI-native platform for commercial banking Sympera to scale business banking efforts. 

The $2.7 billion community bank’s decision follows pilot testing, Sudharshan Krishnan, head of go-to-market for Sympera, told FinAi News. 

Sympera aims to make bankers’ jobs easier, Krishnan said, by combining AI and business activity for: 

• Company updates; 

• Hiring signals such as external employment data; and 

• Operational changes. 

“AI is moving from experimentation to becoming a core part of how banks operate,” Madhu Reddy, chief information officer at Republic, said in a release. 

Sympera is a natural fit with the Microsoft Dynamics platform used by the bank, Reddy said. “The pilot proved the thesis; now we are scaling it.” 

Citizens State Bank selects Payman for agentic solutions  

Citizens State Bank selected Payman AI for agentic solutions, according to a May 12 news release.  

The Durango, Colo.-based bank is using Payman AI’s agents for: 

• Bank teller workflows; 

• Loan collections;  

• Account servicing; and 

• Spending analysis. 

The $478 million bank chose Payman in part because “their agents work from our procedural documents, not generic training data,” Chief Executive Alexander Price told FinAi News. 

“When a teller asks the agent a question, it responds the way Citizens State Bank would respond because it’s built on the policies and procedures we’ve defined.”

— Alexander Price, CEO, Citizens State Bank

Before designing the agent, Payman watched how the bank’s branch managers handled escalations and studied the bank’s pain points to build an agent that acts as “an extension of their team,” Payman CEO Tyllen Bicakcic told FinAi News.   

“What we learned is that community banks don’t need more software. They need an agent that respects how they already work,” Bicakcic said.  

Explainability and auditability are Payman’s primary focus when building agents to ensure regulatory compliance he said, noting there’s a “kill switch” in its platform if something looks wrong. 

To encourage its use, the bank emphasizes that the agent “handles procedural questions so the teller never has to step away from a customer to track down an answer from a mentor or hunt through documentation,” Erin Hawk, vice president of operations, told FinAi News.  

“They stay present; they appear confident,” Hawk said. “The agent is the technical assistant and the human is still the banker.” 

Sturgis Bank, Mantl partner on onboarding  

Sturgis, Mich.-based Sturgis Bank partnered with fintech Mantl to deploy AI-driven account opening and onboarding solutions, according to a May 13 release from Mantl parent company Alkami. 

Mantl’s platform enables bank employees to “move beyond manual processes” and focus on customer relationships, Andrew McCall, vice president of operations at the $1 billion bank, said in the release. 

“At the same time, we’re driving efficiency, supporting deposit growth and enhancing the level of service we provide to our communities,” he said. 

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