Independent Banker - April 2021 - 75

Blasting into the digital age
At the start of 2020, Barwick Banking Company relied on paper ledgers and didn't offer
debit cards, let alone online banking. Now, a year later, the community bank in Barwick,
Ga., offers all of that-and more-with an eye on expanding into new markets. By Ed Avis
hen Jim Bange closed on the
acquisition of Barwick Banking
Company in January 2020, he became
CEO of a community bank that looked
more like banks of 1950 than of 2020.
Founded in 1907, the bank still used
paper ledger books, did not offer debit
cards and had zero internet presence.
" [The bank] had a small core
system with the old black screens
that you had to type codes into to find
customers, " Bange says. " There were
four employees: a cashier, a teller, a
customer service person and the CEO,
who has since retired. "
Before Bange came on, the bank
served about 250 customers and had
about $1 million in loans on its books.
In the year since, the $50 millionasset
community bank in Barwick,
Ga., has blasted into the digital age.
Today, it has a thoroughly up-to-date
website, online and mobile banking
capabilities, debit cards and a new
core system. The transition to digital
was part of Bange's strategy to expand
W
the bank's reach beyond Barwick, a
town of 237 people.
" When we purchased the bank, our
plan was to expand into Florida-St.
Augustine and Daytona Beach-and,
because of that, we knew we'd need
to have those digital products, "
Bange says. " That would help us get
a foothold in those areas, and we
could expand that foothold when we
open branches. "
Switching cores over a weekend
As part of Barwick Banking
Company's digital evolution, Bange
and his colleagues evaluated three
core providers.
Name:
Barwick Banking Company
Location:
Barwick, Ga.
Assets:
$50 million
By late spring 2020, they had
settled on Finastra's Fusion Phoenix
core system. Over the summer,
Barwick Banking Company worked
with the London-based company to
create the customer codes, account
numbers and other data points it
needed, and then the team tweaked
the system to suit bank objectives.
Next, the community bank found
a provider, Jacksonville, Fla.-based
Community Bank Connections, to get
its website up and running, and then
integrated the core into the site to
create online banking opportunities,
allowing customers to view accounts
and pay bills online for the first time.
By the end of October 2020,
Barwick Banking Company was ready
to make the big switch. A typical
transition to a core system involves
" Even though the
name Barwick
Banking Company is
not familiar to that
market, the bank
has been around
since 1907, so we're
focusing on the
fact that it's an old
bank with good
tradition that now
has the technology
they need. "
-JIM BANGE,
BARWICK BANKING COMPANY
automatically converting the data
from the old system to the new one.
But that doesn't work when you're
going from virtually no digital data to
a modern system. Instead, everything
had to be converted by hand.
" There's a bar next door to the
bank, and they let us rent space
during the day because we didn't
have enough room inside the bank, "
Bange says. " We brought in a team
and worked over an entire weekend
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