Azure for banking allows BankMobile to revolutionize banking experiences by innovating digital customer application

BankMobile, a Motifworks client, is well on their way to lead a completely branchless banking revolution aimed at Millennials through Azure for banking. Although the concept of branchless banking is not new, the way in which BankMobile is going about it is surely is and with Motifworks Azure Financial Services they achieved it seamlessly.

Kirk Barrett, BankMobile’s Chief Technology Officer said, ““The millennials get the digital… Younger digital natives are using these things because they make sense and they get it. So, we’re not crazy to do a digital-only bank.”¹

Enabling digital customer experiences with Azure for Banking services

BankMobile initially marketed its products directly to consumers, a strategy that didn’t provide the results they were looking for. About a year ago, however, when it started developing white-label relationships with colleges and universities, they turned a corner.

In these arrangements, the bank develops software for the institutions to distribute financial aid refunds to students.  BankMobile, in turn, asks the students if they would like to receive their refunds in BankMobile checking accounts.

That change, plus aggressively pursuing other opportunities to expand its services, has helped BankMobile grow its number of accounts out of the thousands and into the millions.¹ 

BankMobile wants to make sure it’s ready to take on the growing number of customers who are ready to do their banking through a screen. The company launched an innovation lab in Lancaster County in 2015 to develop its technologies in a bubble free of the distractions of the day-to-day bank operations. Kirk Barrett leads that roughly 40-person team with chief digital officer Dan Armstrong.¹

To support this growth, Bank Mobile decided to leverage Azure for banking so they didn’t have to invest in on-prem infrastructure, thereby saving cost and increasing efficiency.

Developing identity verification and other security measures has proven a consistent theme during Barrett’s tenure with BankMobile as the bank tries to find the best ways to mitigate the risks inherent in digital money transfers and never seeing a customer face-to-face. “They say on the internet, they don’t know you’re a dog,” Barrett said¹, which is why they are so focused on staying ahead of the technology curve.

Motifworks very own ‎Cloud Solutions Architect, Jason Smallwood, has been an integral team player in constructing BankMobile’s cloud infrastructure to ensure BankMobile’s digital services run seamlessly and securely.

Azure and SQL Server 2016 have provided just that; a robust, scalable, and secure platform.

Going forward BankMobile is also working on innovations to expand its services, including using data analytics and artificial intelligence to help customers build financial plans around the information in their accounts.¹

Motifworks is proud to be a technology partner of BankMobile and we are excited to help them celebrate their continued success with Azure for banking platform.