Independent Banker - December 2020 - 65

Trailblazer
The best of both worlds
When Midwest BankCentre launched a
digital brand, Rising Bank, it hit its deposits
goal within a month. Now, it's also realizing
business efficiencies that benefit both
brands. By Judith Sears
idwest BankCentre has seen plenty of
changes in its 114-year history, but perhaps
none so transformative as the digital revolution
it started two years ago.
M
In 2019, the $2.3 billion-asset community
bank in St. Louis, Mo., launched a digital-only
brand known as Rising Bank, aiming to raise
$100 million in deposits within one year. It blew
past that goal in just six months and then finished
the year with $130 million in deposits.
Rising Bank is one way Midwest BankCentre
aims to achieve its longer-term vision of adding
several hundred million dollars in new deposits
within five years, as well as attracting younger
customers and expanding its footprint. For the
bank, brick-and-mortar branch expansion looked
like a slow and costly way to achieving these
goals, so its leaders decided instead to make a
major commitment to digital technology.
" I refer to Rising Bank as a laboratory, " says
Dale Oberkfell, Midwest BankCentre's president
and chief financial officer. " If you can learn
how efficient it would be, then it would be easier
to migrate the solutions to bigger parts of our
organization. "
Overcoming customer friction
To prepare for the new division, Midwest
BankCentre created a task force of 30 employees-
about 10% of its total workforce-representing
marketing, IT and other departments, as well
as three members of the executive team. This
structure ensured employee buy-in. " All were
part of it, all bought into it and all understood it, "
Oberkfell says.
Recognizing the community bank's lack of
online banking experience, Oberkfell looked for
digital partners.
" Bankers can make
good choices, but
the internet was a
new place for us, "
he says. " Our team
wasn't sure what
our choices were.
'Help me with our choices and we can arrive at
the correct answer.' "
Oberkfell wanted to leverage Midwest BankCentre's
existing infrastructure, which is a Jack
Henry core, and add new capabilities. In his research,
Oberkfell learned that a customer's online
account opening experience is key.
Quick stat
$130M
The amount of
deposits Rising
Bank raised in
its first year of
operation
With this in mind, the community bank chose
to partner with MANTL, a fintech startup in New
York City with a range of account-opening products.
Though it's a relatively new startup, MANTL
had experience working with community
banks. " They had real answers for the questions
we were asking, " Oberkfell says. " They were
very consultative. "
MANTL touts itself as core agnostic, meaning
its solution works regardless of what core provider
a bank uses. " We knew from the beginning
that we would have to integrate with many core
banking systems, so we built that competence
in-house, " says Nathaniel Harley, MANTL CEO.
" We provide deep core banking experience with
modern best-in-class fintech developers that understand
cloud-based platforms. "
The MANTL platform integrates other
independentbanker.org Q 61
Name: Midwest
BankCentre
Location: St. Louis, Mo.
Assets: $2.3 billion
http://www.independentbanker.org
Independent Banker - December 2020

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