Digital transformation in banking: A strategic approach

Farmers and Merchants Bank (F&M) of Arkansas has a rich 79-year history of banking in the southern United States. It also has a lengthy history of holding modern tools on par with traditional values. 

Its digital transformation strategy needed to reflect these two pillars. It went for a cloud adoption strategy that placed customer experience and staff onboarding high on the needs list, right next to classic banking concerns like security and compatibility. F&M wants banking to be easy. Its approach showed digital transformation in banking can be easy, too.

Digital transformation launch point: Google Workspace

F&M’s digital transformation journey began by transitioning to cloud-based systems, starting with Google Workspace. This move was kickstarted by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced customers and staff off-premises.

Google Workspace’s tailored selection of tools enabled F&M to maintain efficiency and service quality while dealing with the new pressure of remote service.

“Embracing [cloud] technology really sort of moves the sticks in terms of the gain and efficiency that we get from not having to support on-premise software,” said Tyler Morgan, CIO of F&M.

Cloud-based tools for banking

As F&M deepened its commitment to the cloud, it sought to replace legacy software; particularly for PDF editing. The bank required a solution that was browser-compatible, cost-effective, and secure.

“We were looking for a solution that was adaptable to the browser environment, so that we didn't have installation requirements,” said Morgan. “And it would also be much easier for our users to pick up.”

After exploring the market, F&M found Lumin. Ken Masters, IT Director for Digital Experience at F&M, described Lumin as a “diamond under a rock,” perfectly suited to their needs.

Digital transformation security priorities

In the banking sector, security is paramount. F&M’s digital transformation strategy placed a strong emphasis on this. Moving documents to Google Drive was a successful step, but F&M needed to ensure that any new software would integrate without compromising security.

Lumin’s integration with Google Workspace allowed F&M to keep documents within their existing Google Drive environment, thanks to its option to auto-sync without storage; when you sync Lumin to Google Drive, you can ensure no files remain stored in Lumin after editing. This makes checking compliance boxes much easier.

“We can keep our documents in the Google Drive repositories, where they always live and where we like for them to live,” said Morgan. “Likewise, we can edit PDFs that are local to the workstations in the same way. It basically allows us to – even though we're using a cloud software – keep our files exactly where we want to keep our files.” 

Lumin also offered additional security features, such as restricting logins to F&M’s Google domain and setting IP restrictions, ensuring that document access was tightly controlled.

Efficient collaboration

For F&M, digital transformation in banking isn’t just about technology; it’s about the people using it. Will Tate, Reporting and Automation Analyst at F&M, emphasized the importance of the real-time collaboration made possible by Google Workspace and Lumin. “It just increases our efficiency and productivity by 100%,” he said.

Morgan agrees. “By integrating Lumin in our processes, we are able to facilitate collaboration more quickly. We're able to get documents and forms to customers more quickly. We're able to collaborate more quickly internally.”

This newfound explosive collaboration means the bank has nicely reduced the time needed to complete tasks for customers – like lengthy loan applications – improving both staff productivity and, and a result, the customer experience.

Customer-centric approach

F&M’s digital transformation is driven by its commitment to people: farmers, merchants, bank staff and more. By using Lumin, it’s improved staff efficiency and productivity; which means happier customers.

“Every extra step that we have to do in a process adds time to, and decreases, the customer experience,’ said Morgan. “[Lumin] gives us a faster time to value. Our customers [get] a superior digital experience versus maybe what they might get at a peer bank down the street.” 

Ease of use and accessibility

Lumin’s user-friendly interface and seamless integration with Google Workspace have drastically reduced onboarding time for staff. Tate noted that the simplicity of Lumin has made it easier for employees to adapt, further enhancing the bank’s operational efficiency.

He’s also impressed by the ease of onboarding for staff, who don’t need much help getting to grips with Lumin’s intuitive UX.

“The time that it takes to onboard different employees to the software is next to nothing,” said Tate. “We just drop it on the computer and it syncs with the Google Cloud, which is awesome.”

“Now that the bank is leveraging Lumin, I can actually take a lunch.”