Independent Banker - April 2023 - 28

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core banking partners and also fintech
partners, so an institution can have
the right combination of solutions to
achieve its growth goals efficiently and
effectively, " Potts says.
Ideally, a community bank would
choose a core provider that has built its
own open-banking API layer to make
it easier for fintechs to integrate their
best-of-breed solutions on behalf of
the bank, he adds. That way, the bank
has the choice whether to pick fintech
solutions for ancillary solutions or use
the core vendor's ancillary offerings.
" Banks need to be certain that their
core vendor can support their plans or
get out of their way, " Potts says.
Meeting clients' needs
Fintech and regtech provider Computer
Services, Inc. (CSI) in Paducah, Ky., has
more than 400 industry-standard APIs
and growing that roughly 25% of CSI
clients use today, says Tara Schultz, vice
FOCUS TECHNOLOGY
Scaling your core
as you grow
As community banks grow, their cores need to, too. We spoke
with experts on how to prepare your core for scalability and growth.
By Katie Kuehner-Hebert
f community banks want to grow
fast, they should make sure their
core banking platform can scale
quickly and appropriately with them.
That includes being more flexible
for other vendors that offer access to
top solutions.
A solid strategy begins with
determining how best to grow, says
Charles Potts, ICBA's executive vice
I
president and chief innovation officer.
Does the bank want to acquire other
banks with similar models and scale
its asset size? Does it want to expand
into more lines of business? Does it
want to get into embedded finance or
provide other services via banking-asa-service
(BaaS)? Or all of the above?
" Layering on top of the growth
strategy should be an evaluation of
president of open banking for CSI.
" Although we offer an integrated and
holistic approach to those who wish to
minimize vendors and maximize their
core strategic partnership, CSI fully
supports and encourages our customers'
choice of fintech partners through open
banking and real-time API capabilities, "
Schultz says. " We encourage our
customers to choose the solutions that
are in alignment with their institutional
strategy and meet their customer
experience expectations and goals. "
One of CSI's clients, $704 millionasset
Axiom Bank in Maitland, Fla., is
on a growth spree after transitioning to
a commercial bank, says Mike Coyne,
its chief information officer. But the
community bank is also expanding
its retail operations nationwide by
leveraging CSI's open banking APIs to
integrate solutions by fintechs, such as
a digital account opening solution and
an onboarding solution. These enabled
Axiom Bank to move into different
markets under its national charter.
28 // ICBA Independent Banker // April 2023
Illustration by Lustre/Adobe
Independent Banker - April 2023

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