Oak Bank Looks to Grow with New Fiserv Banking System

September 25, 2012 Alex Woodie

Oak Bank plans to grow its business thanks to a new core banking system and a range of add-ons from Fiserv. The Chicago bank chose Premiere, a powerful IBM i application that will form the foundation for a digital banking overhaul that should improve the way customers interact with the $218 million institution.

Fiserv sells core banking systems that run on a variety of platforms, including IBM i, AIX, Windows, and IBM zSeries and the Unisys Clearpath mainframes. But it’s Premiere, which was ported from the Unisys platform to i5/OS (the old name for IBM i) in 2004, that is Fiserv’s most complete, powerful, and widely used core banking platform. More than half of Fiserv’s customers choose Fiserv to run and manage their core banking systems, and Oak Bank chose this approach, too.

In addition to an outsourced implementation of Premier running in Fiserv data centers, Oak Bank chose a whole host of other Fiserv offerings, including CheckFree RXP and CheckFree Small Business for bill payment; Mobiliti for mobile banking; Business Online and Retail Online for online banking; Branch Source Capture and Merchant Source Capture for check capture; Business Process Manager for new account and process management; and Fiserv Clearing Network for image exchange and solutions for debit card processing.

The move is expected to thrust Oak Bank into the digital age, and help grow the online presence of the company, which touts a single physical branch in the heart of Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood.

“We want to be able to serve our customers wherever they are–whether they’re snowbirds, frequent travelers to foreign countries or residents of a new neighborhood,” says the bank’s VP and CFO Rob Sullivan in a press release. “Our customers expect robust digital offerings that include fully integrated, single sign-on access to online information.”

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Do the Math When Looking at IBM i Hosting for Cost Savings

COVID-19 has accelerated certain business trends that were already gaining strength prior to the start of the pandemic. E-commerce, telehealth, and video conferencing are some of the most obvious examples. One example that may not be as obvious to the general public but has a profound impact on business is the shift in strategy of IBM i infrastructure from traditional, on-premises environments to some form of remote configuration. These remote configurations and all of their variations are broadly referred to in the community as IBM i hosting.

“Hosting” in this context can mean different things to different people, and in general, hosting refers to one of two scenarios. In the first scenario, hosting can refer to a client owned machine that is housed in a co-location facility (commonly called a co-lo for short) where the data center provides traditional system administrator services, relieving the client of administrative and operational responsibilities. In the second scenario, hosting can refer to an MSP owned machine in which partition resources are provided to the client in an on-demand capacity. This scenario allows the client to completely outsource all aspects of Power Systems hardware and the IBM i operating system and database.

The scenario that is best for each business depends on a number of factors and is largely up for debate. In most cases, pursuing hosting purely as a cost saving strategy is a dead end. Furthermore, when you consider all of the costs associated with maintaining and IBM i environment, it is typically not a cost-effective option for the small to midsize market. The most cost-effective approach for these organizations is often a combination of a client owned and maintained system (either on-prem or in a co-lo) with cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service. Only in some cases of larger enterprise companies can a hosting strategy start to become a potentially cost-effective option.

However, cost savings is just one part of the story. As IBM i expertise becomes scarce and IT resources run tight, the only option for some firms may be to pursue hosting in some capacity. Whatever the driving force for pursing hosting may be, the key point is that it is not just simply an option for running your workload in a different location. There are many details to consider and it is to the best interest of the client to work with an experienced MSP in weighing the benefits and drawbacks of each option. As COVID-19 rolls on, time will tell if IBM i hosting strategies will follow the other strong business trends of the pandemic.

When we say do the math in the title above, it literally means that you need to do the math for your particular scenario. It is not about us doing the math for you, making a case for either staying on premises or for moving to the cloud. There is not one answer, but just different levels of cost to be reckoned which yield different answers. Most IBM i shops have fairly static workloads, at least measured against the larger mix of stuff on the public clouds of the world. How do you measure the value of controlling your own IT fate? That will only be fully recognized at the moment when it is sorely missed the most.

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