First National Bank Chooses Jack Henry Outsourcing

Published: January 5, 2010

by Alex Woodie

First National Bank, a $274 million bank in Hope, Arkansas, has elected to replace an aging and cobbled-together banking system with a new i OS-based core banking system from Jack Henry & Associates, the software vendor announced last month. And instead of running the CIF 20/20 software in house, First National has elected to let Jack Henry run it for them.

First National Bank was facing a crossroads when it came to its information technology systems. The bank, which operates six branches in Arkansas and Texas, was coming to the end of its contract with its existing application provider, but wasn't real happy about how things were going, according to Carol Smith, the bank's senior vice president of operations.

"Vendor and release management had become a nightmare since our bank is dependent on numerous vendors and disparate products and services that lack the integration we want and need," Smith says in a press release. What's more, the bank needed a core processing system that could scale with its future growth plans.

As First National looked at its options, the bank considered the benefits of outsourcing the software to a dedicated provider. The bank had experience running its own in-house system, but kept its eyes open to the outsourcing options as it contacted potential providers.

In the end, First National elected to go with Jack Henry and CIF 20/20, an i OS-based core banking solution for community banks that, with 800 customers, is the most heavily used Power Systems-based core banking platform for community banks, Jack Henry claims. Several factors led First National to Jack Henry, including the fact that Jack Henry utilizes a single technology stack, and the availability of integrated add-on solutions.

In addition to picking CIF 20/20, First National also decided to let a subsidiary of the $745 million, Monett, Missouri, company, Jack Henry Banking, run the CIF 20/20 implementation on its own System i hardware. Monica Minter, CFO of First National Bank, explains the outsourcing decision:

"Outsourcing will let us leverage Jack Henry Banking's extensive infrastructure and processing environment, which will eliminate the capital expenditures required for in-house systems, the need for resident resources to operate and manage our in-house data center, and long-term capacity planning," she says in a press release "Outsourcing will also provide our bank with the ability to focus on our core competencies with ongoing access to advancing technology, regulatory compliance, and Jack Henry Banking's technology and security experts."

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