Newburyport Bank

Newburyport Bank Modernizes with FIS HORIZON

Looking to Grow

Newburyport Bank was founded in 1854 and operates 10 offices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. When new president and CEO Lloyd L. Hamm, Jr. joined the bank, a primary goal was to expand the balance sheet, particularly in retail, commercial and consumer lending. Before long, it became clear to him that the current core was not built to support the bank that Newburyport was rapidly becoming.

Under Hamm’s leadership, Newburyport Bank went through a complete rebrand, adopting a bold new mission: to be a strong, independent community partner that helps neighbors and businesses navigate life’s journey. To facilitate this mission and transform as an organization, the bank evaluated many potential core systems.

Ultimately, as a longstanding FIS® client, they chose to stay with FIS and convert to the FIS HORIZON core platform.

An All-New Conversion Experience

HORIZON may have been an obvious choice; however, the implementation process seemed potentially complex at the outset. The bank hadn’t undergone a core conversion in 35 years and had created custom workaround solutions within their former core, many of them decades old. FIS would need to do some clean-up to ensure minimal disruption.

The conversion kicked off just as the COVID-19 pandemic began, presenting a unique challenge. Everything would need to be performed remotely. With virtual collaboration and online training, FIS led the bank through a seven-month process. Despite the obstacles, FIS successfully completed Newburyport Bank’s conversion on time and on budget.

Scaling up Without Additional Staff

The new core technology empowered the bank to scale up services without significant additions to staff and resources. HORIZON enhanced and modernized customer engagement: Bank employees can now interface remotely with customers using iPads. Data is stored and managed in the cloud and manual processes are automated with robotics.

HORIZON supports new types of lending, and as the COVID-19 pandemic pushed on, this proved essential. The new core enabled the bank to efficiently process over $111 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans and supported a 150% increase in commercial loans.

Looking Ahead

Since the conversion, assets have increased by 12%. The bank looks forward to further modernization with solutions, expertise and breakthroughs in AI from FIS, particularly in back-office operations, and the next-gen Digital One platform will enhance the bank’s online products and account opening process.

Impact

Converting to HORIZON provided an open, flexible and scalable core for Newburyport Bank and delivered impressive results. The easy-to-use platform modernized how bank employees engage with customers, moved data storage to the cloud and automated previously manual processes. HORIZON improved the customer experience and accelerated growth without the need for additional back office and product-line staffing.