Headquarters: Engelhard, N.C.
Asset size: $975 million
Project: Core upgrade.
Why it's cool: The bank previously had no teller system. Now it has mobile banking.
Time Travelers
Of all the community banks that are executing core upgrades, few will undergo quite as vast a transformation as East Carolina Bank, where hardware assets that in some cases date to the Reagan Era are going into the cocoon and coming out as cutting-edge automation.
The bank is in the midst of a core overhaul that includes migrating almost all of its systems to an outsourced FIS Horizon core platform, with loan systems, online and CRM upgrades and an Ironkey security deployment. The migration also includes a new online banking interface and new data storage and loan origination systems. An automated loan processing system just became operational, and the bank was getting set to deploy mobile banking and mobile remote deposit capture early this year. The most rudimentary processes are being modernized. Some tellers, for example, were still using Sharp machines. "You would think that a bank would have a teller system, but we didn't," says CIO Wil Sampson.
