Jack Henry Banking Leader Discusses Technology Modernization
Jon Baltzell
VP of Banking Solutions
Jack Henry
Jonathan Baltzell, VP of Banking Solutions for Jack Henry, discusses strategy to modernize technology in the financial industry. Read the article and watch video of the full presentation at a recent Springfield Tech Council event.
The U.S. financial industry is caught in a predicament — striving to grow and adapt to increasing demands for innovation and changing customer needs, while avoiding significant disruption to existing technology and infrastructure.
Financial institutions (FIs), especially community and regional banks and credit unions, continue to work hard to maintain personal relationships with their accountholders. But those accountholders are experiencing more financial fragmentation than ever before; the average American is connected to dozens of financial service companies for everything from credit cards to mobile payments, financial management, and investment.
So how do community FIs maintain their place at the center of their accountholders’ financial world and still offer what those customers need?
According to Jonathan Baltzell, the answer is Jack Henry’s technology modernization strategy. It’s a next-generation platform designed to help banks build cloud-native, component-based services without requiring costly and time-consuming changes to their existing core processing systems.
Jonathan, who becomes Jack Henry’s President of Banking Solutions on July 1, 2024, shared his outlook during the June 6 meeting of the Springfield Tech Council. He offered a look at Jack Henry’s 48-year history and our focus on serving approximately 7,500 community and regional financial institutions that touch 244 million accountholders every day.
The technology modernization strategy will allow FIs to individually adopt modules and services without the need for a core system overhaul. That open approach, combined with continually high levels of research and development investment, provides flexibility and optionality for clients.
Jonathan has a long history with Jack Henry, starting part-time in 2001 while still a high school student. He helped launch the company’s cloud processing team in 2009, so he’s passionate about the possibilities of cloud-based services.
Jonathan also talked about ongoing changes in the financial industry, including consolidation. Many smaller FIs have difficulty operating in a newer, more tightly regulated environment, and some have merged with larger institutions to continue improving service to their customers. FDIC and NCUA statistics show hundreds fewer FIs at the end of 2023 compared to the previous year, with all the change coming from the smallest asset categories.
So how do smaller community FIs compete? Jonathan says through their continued focus on customer relationships, combined with being flexible and adaptable.
“We have to skate to where the puck is going to be,” he said. “We’re developing a more nimblecore platform that can take advantage of the public cloud and keep up with the pace of innovation.”
Watch the Full Tech Modernization Presentation
Livestream from June 6, 2024 at the Springfield Tech Council Event on Tech Modernization with Johnathon Baltzell, VP of Banking Solutions at Jack Henry.
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