Compushare of Orange County, California and Atlantic Central Bankers Bank (ACBB) of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania have signed an alliance agreement and partnership deal that will dramatically affect the competitive landscape for technology service providers to the community banking market.
The partnership signals a new era and business model for correspondent banks nationally.
In 2005, Atlantic Central Bankers Bank launched a new technology subsidiary named Banking Infrastructure Technology Service or BITS. BITS provides community banks with a hosted IP Telephony and converged network infrastructure featuring MPLS circuits and secure VPN's that provide major cost savings and a competative advantage for community banks. The alliance with Financial Technology Management Company, Compushare, Inc. greatly enhances and expands the ACBB-BITS utility network to include managed services that are desperately needed by community banks. "The partnership with ACBB brings critical systems management, file server monitoring, software maintenance and vulnerability testing to all community banks that use the ACBB-BITS network," said Aaron Silva, Director of Corporate Development for Compushare. "Community banks simply plug into the BITS network and gain instant access to many government mandated technology services powered by Compushare, keeping the institution safe and sound."
"The marriage of the managed services provided by Compushare, their strong experience serving this industry, along with our commitment to help prepare community banks for the future while lowering their costs is perfect," said Jon Evans, Chief Executive Officer of Atlantic Central Bankers Bank and one of the founders of BITS. The alliance between a correspondent bank [ACBB] and a technology managment company [Compushare] at this level of cooperation is unique in the industry nationwide.
ACBB has an aggressive expansion model and plan for the private BITS network and utility that will include other bankers' banks across the United States over time. Rollouts are planned in Florida, Illinois, and other states by year-end - furthering the reach and value to other community banking hot beds. New bank creations, or "denovo banks" as they are called, are at a fast pace in these markets. The alliance provides a "bank in a box" opportunity for new institutions to simply connect into one source for every competitive service the bank might need. New and small institutions are able to emulate the technological breath of a larger institution for a fraction of the cost with minimal capital and resource drain.