Finastra announced that First Citizens Bank of Iowa and Minnesota, a family-owned community bank headquartered in Mason City, Iowa, has “expanded its collaboration with Finastra, migrating Finastra’s Fusion Phoenix core solution from on-site hosted to the cloud.”
The bank will leverage its new core capabilities “to adapt to emerging opportunities, increase operational efficiencies, and automate internal processes, enabling it to better deliver an enhanced customer experience.”
Joleen Fleming, Chief Operations and Retail Officer at First Citizens Bank, said:
“For almost three decades, First Citizens has trusted the team at Finastra to power our operations through their innovative solutions, helping us stay one step ahead as banking technology has evolved over time. As we continue to grow, Finastra has the experience and stability we can trust to help deliver better banking across the communities we serve. We’re looking forward to unlocking innovation and increasing efficiencies so we can focus even more closely on delivering financial well-being for everyone.”
First Citizens Bank required “a core banking solution adaptable to a fast-moving and ever-evolving market.”
Available in the cloud via Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform, Fusion Phoenix gives financial institutions faster access “to innovation, transformation at scale, accelerated time to market, and a low-cost path to innovation and open banking, something 68% of financial institutions in the United States see as essential, according to Finastra’s Financial Services State of the Nation Survey.”
Enabled by the cloud migration, the bank will “achieve increased operational efficiencies through reduced back-office resources and architecture, allowing the bank to focus on the customer experience more closely.”
Keith Redding, Chief Revenue Officer, Universal Banking at Finastra, said:
“For generations, First Citizens Bank has trusted Finastra to power its growth and to be a reliable and innovative partner. Fusion Phoenix’s open model gives the bank the flexibility it needs to compete with the larger banks while quickly adapting to emerging opportunities and enabling exceptional service.”
In addition to Fusion Phoenix, First Citizens has previously “selected Finastra for ancillary solutions including lending capabilities, item processing, and ECM cold storage.”
As noted in the update, Finastra is “a global provider of financial software applications and marketplaces, and launched the leading open platform for innovation, FusionFabric.cloud, in 2017.”
It serves institutions of all sizes, “providing award-winning software solutions and services across Lending, Payments,Treasury & Capital Markets and Universal Banking (Retail, Digital and Commercial Banking) for banks to support direct banking relationships and grow through indirect channels, such as embedded finance and Banking as a Service. Its pioneering approach and commitment to open finance and collaboration is why it is trusted by ~8,600 institutions, including 90 of the world’s top 100 banks.”