By Art Gillis

Thirty years ago, banks were hurting because the basic core applications were weak and lacking in, the now famous overused brochure word, robustness. Today one DDA system is like any other. That goes for any core application save maybe commercial lending. So how do banks choose a better core system? By looking at the applications surrounding core.

An example of that presented itself during my program called, “Makin’ the Rounds.” Some people call it, “Ya gotta get out more.” My job is to get out and look at what’s new in the vendor offerings department. This year’s season opener took place at Jack Henry & Associates. JHA has introduced a new piece to their technology pie. They call it ProfitStars. I call it the brain behind all the good stuff JHA has been building for the past 30 years. In a previous blog, I referred to this kind of capability as the penthouse. You can’t get there unless you built a strong foundation and added several stories of functionality. For the past two years, JHA has been making acquisitions of another kind, but with a game plan. They packaged these systems under an umbrella of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for smoother integration with the core. Included are Asset/Liability Management, Profitability, Risk Management, Database, Compliance, Fraud Detection, and All Kinds of Retrieval Opportunities that any thinking person in a bank can use. No custom programming, thank you. Data and transaction factories at banks have been doing the job pretty well for a couple of decades. The “engineering” piece now let’s a banker investigate performance to get the best return for the resources used. For those nagging bankers in my life who have been asking, “Are we there yet?” I think I can finally say YES.

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