Press Releases
Beacon Bank, created through the completed merger of equals between Berkshire Hills Bancorp and Brookline Bancorp, has launched the Narmi One platform as its digital banking provider. The 85th largest U.S. bank, with $23.2 billion in assets, now offers digital experiences across consumer and business touchpoints, including account opening, digital banking, fraud defense, and back-end administration. The conversion moved over 55,000 users across three brands and 40 million transactions in a single day. The partnership with Narmi began in 2019 with Consumer Account Opening and has expanded to the full Narmi One platform, built in-house from a single codebase.
OpenLegacy has announced the availability of OpenLegacy Hub, a modernization platform built on and integrated with AWS, designed to help banks and large enterprises modernize mainframe and legacy applications incrementally without downtime or business disruption. The platform provides a low-risk alternative to traditional big-bang modernization by allowing institutions to gradually migrate business logic from legacy environments like COBOL, CICS, IMS, VSAM, RPG, and IBM-i to AWS-native services including AWS Transform, Amazon Bedrock, AWS Lambda, and Amazon EKS. It exposes legacy data and logic as secure APIs and event-driven microservices, enabling modern cloud applications to interact with existing systems. OpenLegacy Hub also incorporates AWS generative AI to automate code analysis, copybook mapping, and data transformation. Available through AWS Marketplace, with planned integration into AWS Transform for Mainframe, the platform is already used by financial institutions such as Bank Leumi to transition from mainframe to a cloud-first architecture while maintaining security and stability.
Machias Savings Bank announced the expansion of its Manchester, New Hampshire, commercial banking team with the addition of Andrew Patton as vice president, commercial banking, and Jamie Brewer as senior vice president and New Hampshire regional market manager. Patton, based in Manchester, brings over 15 years of commercial banking and credit leadership experience, including roles up to executive vice president and chief lending officer, and holds a B.S. from Worcester State University and the CUBLP designation. Brewer joins with 20 years of banking and financial services experience, most recently as senior vice president and commercial relationship manager, and holds a B.A. from the University of Maine at Presque Isle and an M.S. from Boston University. Both will focus on serving businesses across New Hampshire and surrounding areas.
United Heritage Credit Union (UHCU) announced the debut of its first-ever micro-branch, located at the Red Poppy Garden Railroad behind Mulligan's Restaurant in Sun City Georgetown, Texas. The micro-branch, the smallest branch in Texas, allows visitors to press a button to activate sound effects and motion. Built through a collaboration with the Radio Control Modelers club, the Red Poppy Garden Railroad is a large-scale model railroad featuring replicas of Georgetown landmarks and interactive scenes. UHCU is honored to be part of this community attraction.
Baxter Credit Union (BCU) has announced that President/CEO Michael G. Valentine will retire after a 42-year tenure. Jim Block, currently Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, will succeed him as President effective July 1, 2026, and will report to Valentine until his retirement in 2027. Valentine led BCU through sustained growth, expanding partnerships and serving 370,000 members with $6.4 billion in assets. Block, with over 35 years in the credit union industry, has been with BCU since 1995 and has driven digital transformation and operational scaling.
Shield has announced major enhancements to Shield Archive, its AI-powered digital communications governance and archiving platform, aimed at helping financial institutions modernize legacy archives without increasing risk, operational complexity, or costs. The release introduces intelligent hot/cold storage tiering delivering up to 50% cost efficiencies, expanded governance and legal hold capabilities with bulk policy management and AI-powered insights, and proven enterprise-scale migration that has handled over 9 petabytes and 50 billion records across 40 systems. Shield Archive provides regulatory-grade compliance with immutable WORM storage, policy-driven retention, and full auditability, supporting regulations including SEC 17a-4, CFTC, FINRA, and MiFID II.
Zapier, the AI orchestration platform, and Rillet, the AI-native ERP backed by a16z, Sequoia, and ICONIQ, have announced an integration that gives finance teams a fully AI-native stack. The partnership connects Rillet's intelligent general ledger with Zapier's network of 8,000+ app integrations, enabling AI agents to orchestrate complex financial workflows such as month-end close, GL sync, approval routing, and reconciliations across a company's entire tool ecosystem without engineering resources or expensive consultants. The integration is available today on Zapier's platform.
Sogolytics released The Sogolytics CX Rankings: U.S. Banking 2026, based on a survey of 1,018 U.S. consumers, evaluating customer experience at Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and U.S. Bank. JPMorgan Chase ranks first in most categories, including mobile app ease, speed, digital self-service, overall satisfaction, and recommendation scores. Citibank leads in website ease and ATM speed, while Wells Fargo leads in low customer effort. Trust is generally strong but varies: JPMorgan Chase leads digital tool confidence at 89%, and Citibank and Wells Fargo tie at 84% for data protection trust; Bank of America scores lowest in both. About one-third of customers across banks would consider switching for a better experience, with Bank of America showing the highest switching intent at 45% and U.S. Bank the lowest at 29%. When choosing a bank, customers prioritize customer service and support (36%) and data security (36%), followed by ATM access (34%) and branch locations (28%), with mobile app and digital tools at 27%. The study was independently conducted by Sogolytics.
The 2026 ServiceLink State of Homebuying Report, based on surveys of 1,554 recent homebuyers and 507 loan officers, uncovers the psychology of today’s homebuyers. Key findings show buyers are stressed by negotiations and paperwork, desire simplicity and transparency, expect digital tools like eSigning and virtual closings, and often exceed budgets. Many have built significant equity and plan to use home equity loans, while younger buyers face payment risk. Loan officers highlight affordability concerns and knowledge gaps.
A report from Prophet and Hive Science, based on a study of 1,800 banking and wealth management clients across North America, reveals that customer growth is the major opportunity for financial services AI. While most AI efforts have focused on operational efficiency, customers are increasingly open to Agentic AI that feels warm and outcome-focused. 42% of customers are inclined to adopt such services, and warmth drives action more than reliability. Customers value back-stage AI that supports advisors over front-stage self-serve systems, and are willing to pay more for personalized advice and monitoring when delivered through an advisor. The report also highlights psychological factors over demographics, with front-stage adopters being extraverts and back-stage adopters introverts. In the competitive landscape, established institutions like Chase and Citi lead, hybrid players like Fidelity and Charles Schwab are most balanced, and fintechs like Capital One and SoFi stand out in front-stage applications. The report advises marketers to tailor AI strategies to different wealth segments.