2 min read

Integration Is Great for Partners, Too

By Celero Commerce on Jul 25, 2019 12:00:00 AM

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.

Topics: integration BANK SMBs Celero Commerce regional banks payments ecosystem Jeff Brown payments BANKMAX financial institutions SaaS solutions Elmhurst Financial Services financial institution partners community banks business analytics
3 min read

The Power of Partnership

By Celero Commerce on Jul 11, 2019 12:00:00 AM

Jim Harris-July 11, 2019 My long-time friend and our CEO, Kevin Jones, talks often about the importance of integration when it comes to helping small and mid-sized businesses compete and win. What he’s referring to is a natural fit that occurs when great financial technology from different corners of the market—payments, SaaS, and analytics—comes together to bring a one-stop shop for SMB management, both from financial and operational perspectives.

While Kevin’s vision is unmatched in the industry in this regard, I focus my role on something that’s even more foundational, and I’m pleased to tell you that what’s behind every great integration is a great partnership, whether it’s a collection of brands like UMS Banking, Elmhurst, Tandem, and RazorSync, or you’re talking about partnerships of the external, strategic variety.

For me, there are many great partnership opportunities for a company like Celero and its subsidiaries like UMS. We’ve seen a wonderful partnership develop internally as we integrate our teams on a shared services platform that will offer incredible value to SMBs. We also see this dynamic in our work at local community banks through UMS, as well as larger community banks and regional banks through Elmhurst.

At UMS and Elmhurst, we work through commercial bankers and the many teammates who support their work, from branch managers to tellers. Partnerships work and only work when both sides can win. When a community bank brings in a payment processing partner like UMS or Elmhurst, both teams can do what they do best, share the revenue accordingly, and give their mutual customer, the SMB, the tools they need to compete. Commercial bankers are at their best when they can focus on building client relationships and leave their partners to simplify otherwise complex aspects of their clients’ businesses.

The same can be said for software providers. There are many SaaS providers out there that are focused on specific industry verticals. A great example is our own RazorSync, but there are many others out there, too. Again, the developer can stick to what they do best—writing great software, while we can come in with a frictionless integration and onboarding experience for the SMB that’s as easy as clicking on the browser icon on your new computer’s desktop. While I suppose it’s possible that you can build a great app without payments integration, having the revenue stream connected to your financial and operational management means a lot more data and a lot better decision-making along your business-building journey.  

Another great value proposition is that of associations. Again, a partnership must deliver value on both ends. When we can engage with associations, we have the opportunity to grow exponentially the number of merchants we serve. In exchange, the association—a member-driven organization that needs to think of new ways each year to deliver greater value to its member companies—has a program that offers competitive rates and terms that help its members grow.

One of the things I love most about our industry is that it’s full of people who are collaborative by nature. That doesn’t mean that we’re not competitive, but rather that we’re able to focus not only on what we need in business, but what our partners, be they financial institutions, software developers, associations, or others, need as well.  What we are building here at Celero, while it may not be unique, it’s nonetheless special. It’s special because of the integrity we have in aligning our success to that of our partners. They find out very quickly that if we are going to invest ourselves, our financial resources, and our capabilities into a partnership, it’s because we’re betting on them to win.

When you base your partnerships on being fair to your partners and positioning them to win big, you can expect great results for your own team as a result, too.

Topics: onboarding SaaS integration Tandem Innovative Payment Systems Celero Commerce regional banks SMB management Jim Harris payments software providers Elmhurst Financial UMS Banking RazorSync Partnership Kevin Jones community banks business analytics