Jeff Brown-July 25, 2019 If you read anything by or about Celero, you’ll see the word “integration” in lots of places. That’s one of the hallmarks of our company, a diligence we take into everything we do. It’s about delivering value on multiple fronts for our partners and merchants.
We normally speak of integration with regard to helping small and mid-sized merchants get a competitive edge, by merging payments with SaaS solutions, analytics, and other tools for financial management, operations management, and business-building. And while we are laser-focused on developing the ultimate one-stop commerce solutions shop for SMBs, that doesn’t mean we’re not looking for similar synergies for our partner institutions, chief among them community and regional banks.
That’s where our recent acquisition of Elmhurst Financial really makes sense.
While we really liked everything about this company—the exclusive focus on community and regional banks, the white glove service, great technology, and their ability to walk in their partners’ shoes—what I liked best about this team was their ability to bring all of that together and deliver an experience that makes doing business with Elmhurst easy.
Perhaps the best example of how Elmhurst approaches solving challenges for financial institutions is their BANKMAX program. This team seems to take nothing for granted. While I know we have competitors with good pricing and solid training programs, Elmhurst’s BANKMAX is the most comprehensive approach to partnering we’ve seen in this industry. In addition to competitive products and services and access to an elite inside sales team, what’s special about this program is how it helps regional banks create an ethical sales culture.
How do they accomplish this? Technology. When you’re able to help your merchants find real savings in the payments ecosystem, giving them real data in contrast to the smoke-and-mirrors approach they see in other quarters, that’s a commitment to doing business the right way for both merchants and the banks they trust, day-in and day-out.
BANKMAX is all about putting our partners in position to win, since their victories are aligned to the success of their merchants. Happy merchants—those who have the payments capabilities they need at competitive prices they can understand—will see their bankers as partners who share in their success, rather than simply trying to maximize their own income at product level.
If you’re into the numbers of this business, like we are at Celero, it’s hard to look at the tools and reporting included in BANKMAX and not geek out at the insights available to financial institution partners. The level of detail captured in sales and merchant reporting, as long as the ongoing portfolio analysis, is certainly equal to any technology that commercial bankers enjoy at large banks with in-house merchant departments. That’s precisely our value proposition, and why we’ve felt so aligned to our teammates from Elmhurst from day one, that quest to give community banks the technology and tools to compete with much larger competitors, so that they, in turn, can equip small merchants in ways only large companies take as routine.
We welcome the Elmhurst team to Celero, and we are excited by all of the possibilities for us to all grow together.