Partnership will Propel Berkshire Bank to the Forefront of
Digital Banking Experience
BOSTON, March 28,
2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc.
(NYSE: BHLB), the parent company of Berkshire Bank, a socially
responsible community-dedicated bank with branch locations in New
England and New York, announced
that it has expanded its partnership with the leading financial
technology firm Narmi, completing a major milestone in its digital
plan as part of Berkshire's
Exciting Strategic Transformation (BEST). This new collaboration
will propel Berkshire Bank to the forefront with an
industry-leading digital banking experience for consumers and small
businesses. The best-in-class solution will make banking with
Berkshire Bank easier and faster, with a new mobile app and online
banking site, which Berkshire
expects to launch early next year.
"Our deepened engagement with Narmi, a like-minded strategic
partner, to provide digital solutions to our consumer and small
business clients will accelerate our journey towards becoming a
high-performing, leading socially responsible community bank in New
England and beyond," stated Nitin
Mhatre, Berkshire Bank CEO. "Enhancing our customers'
experience is a key tenet of BEST and we believe partnering with
Best-in-Class FinTechs is one of the most cost-effective ways for a
community bank to stay competitive while delivering the exceptional
digital experience our customers want."
Berkshire's new industry
leading consumer and small business mobile app and online banking
sites, powered by Narmi, will allow Berkshire customers and bankers to see the
totality of a banking relationship in a single dashboard across all
digital platforms. Improvements will include cutting-edge
functionalities like personalization, savings tools, self-service
capabilities, and apps to support seamless money transfers and
financial planning. Ultimately the new digital solutions
will be one of the most significant drivers in helping Berkshire deliver on its
DigiTouchSM strategy, which makes banking available
when, where and how customers want it by delivering both the
invaluable human touch connection through extraordinary personal
service and the convenience of user-friendly digital technology
through leading FinTech partnerships.
"Finalizing our expanded partnership with Narmi is the
culmination of years of planning, countless hours of work by
bankers throughout the company and is consistent with our
technology roadmap," stated Sean
Gray, Chief Operating Officer of Berkshire. "Through this partnership,
Berkshire Bank positions itself well to ensure its ability to keep
pace with the speed of digital adoption while providing our
customers with differentiated digital solutions."
"As a forward-thinking, cloud-based FinTech, Narmi will serve as
a springboard for innovation at Berkshire, as we chart a path forward towards
becoming a tech-forward Community Bank," added Sumant Pustake,
Chief Transformation & Strategy Officer. "Our partnership with
Narmi accelerates our BEST digitization roadmap, enhances the
customer and banker experience and drives efficiencies throughout
the organization."
New York City-based Narmi
builds enterprise solutions across consumer digital banking,
business banking and digital account opening. Specializing in
transforming financial institutions into leading digital
organizations, Narmi was recently named in Bank Director's 2021
Best of FinXTech Awards as best solution for customer experience.
By working with Narmi, Berkshire
cements its digital first growth strategy.
"Narmi is thrilled to partner with Berkshire – a top 150 bank – who understands
that putting digital at the forefront of any growth strategy is the
most important lever a financial institution has today. By adopting
Narmi's digital banking platform for businesses and consumers, we
build on the success we've already seen with Berkshire's digital account opening platform
which is also provided by Narmi. Collectively, these digital
experiences will ensure Berkshire
can grow with tremendous scale for years to come, all while putting
the customer first," said Nikhil
Lakhanpal, Co-Founder of Narmi.
Berkshire Bank previously worked with Narmi to upgrade its
consumer online account opening experience reducing the time needed
to open an account to just over two minutes. By expanding this
partnership, new customers will now be able to seamlessly enter
digital banking platforms within seconds after opening their
account.
ABOUT BERKSHIRE HILLS BANCORP
Berkshire Hills Bancorp is the parent of Berkshire Bank,
which is transforming what it means to bank its neighbors socially,
humanly, and digitally to empower the financial potential of
people, families, and businesses in its communities as it pursues
its vision of being the leading socially responsible omni-channel
community bank in the markets it serves. Berkshire Bank provides
business and consumer banking, mortgage, wealth management, and
investment services.
Headquartered in Boston,
Berkshire has approximately
$11.6 billion in assets and operates
105 branch offices in New England and New
York, and is a member of the Bloomberg Gender-Equality
Index. To learn more, call 800-773-5601 or follow us on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
ABOUT NARMI
Narmi is a financial technology company that builds enterprise
solutions across consumer digital banking, business banking and
digital account opening. Financial institutions work with Narmi to
be leading digital organizations, go to market faster with
industry-leading functionality and better compete with Mega-Banks,
Challenger Banks, and FinTech companies. With a particular focus on
openness, Narmi's open framework allows financial institutions to
build their own extensions and features onto the base platform to
cater to their needs. Today, Narmi powers financial institutions
with billions of dollars of assets and helps move millions of
dollars between financial institutions on a daily basis. To learn
more about Narmi, visit: www.narmi.com.
FORWARD-LOOKING
STATEMENTS
This document contains "forward-looking statements" within the
meaning of section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended,
and section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.
You can identify these statements from the use of the words "may,"
"will," "should," "could," "would," "plan," "potential,"
"estimate," "project," "believe," "intend," "anticipate," "expect,"
"target" and similar expressions. There are many factors that could
cause actual results to differ significantly from expectations
described in the forward-looking statements. For a discussion of
such factors, please see Berkshire's most recent reports on Forms 10-K
and 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and
available on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Accordingly,
you should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements,
which reflect our expectations only as of the date of this
document. Berkshire does not
undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements.
BERKSHIRE MEDIA CONTACT
Alicia Jacobs, AVP Public
Relations Officer
Email: communications@berkshirebank.com
BERKSHIRE INVESTOR RELATIONS
CONTACTS
Kevin Conn, SVP, Investor
Relations & Corporate Development
Email: KAConn@berkshirebank.com
Tel: (617) 641-9206
David Gonci, Capital Markets
Director
Email: dgonci@berkshirebank.com
Tel: (413) 281-1973
NARMI MEDIA
CONTACT:
Audrey Song, Product Marketing
audrey@narmi.com
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SOURCE Berkshire Hills Bancorp, Inc.