From our leadership to yours.

In the latest edition of our client insider video series, I talk about how, as a community financial institution, you care about the people in your community. And you’ve done a great job of building a brand and a reputation. 

While other institutions consolidate or disappear altogether, you remain strong because you’ve gotten the word out about who you are and what you stand for. But I’m increasingly concerned that too many community financial institutions are relying on what I’ll call passive marketing. 

We can no longer rely solely on passive marketing.  

Many of our partners have leveraged our marketing technology to increase operational efficiency through pre-scheduled social media posts, automated cross-sell outreach, and much more. We’ve been able to get in front of consumers like never before... but we know attention spans aren’t what they once were. Information is one thing, action is another. How do you get a consumer to take action and actually make a choice? 

The answer? Passionate marketing. Facts inform, but passion moves. Consumer passion is at an all-time high. They want their choices to truly mean something — for themselves and for others. And whether they know it or not yet...  

What people really want is a partner like you. 

(FI)nder is the key to cutting through the noise and grabbing their attention. Your marketing is what holds them, confirms their needs, and validates their decision. From there, you do the rest. 

There has never been a better time for community financial institutions to lean into passionate marketing. Reach out to your Client Director or Client Marketing Manager and learn about all the ways we can support your mission, your brand, and your reputation. With a mixture of tried-and-true strategies and brand-new technology — not to mention the best checking accounts and loans in the U.S. — the people who need you will be able to find you more easily than ever. And they can finally be proud of their money.

Imagine this: What if you could reach more consumers locally without having to increase your marketing budget? What if you had a reliable way to motivate those consumers to do business with you? And what if you could do so with very little impact on your staff or resources, with a partner and a network that you already have?  

You’ve been hearing from your Client Director that you don’t have to imagine it anymore. Now you can actually do it.   

We’ll help them find you. You help them bank better. You can have a featured presence on our updated website and the new Kasasa app that allows people to find your institution and open an account or book a loan with you.  

In my video, I share how we support you in this consumer acquisition program operationally.  

You’ll benefit from the harnessed visibility that Kasasa’s PR, social media, marketing, word of mouth, and national brand presence provides. Consumers can open new accounts directly on the Kasasa platforms or via the online account open portal on your site.  

New account holders who have any questions will find most everything they need on Kasasa’s platforms, and we’re staffing up to handle the bulk of customer support. Leaving you the opportunity to showcase the personalized serves you’re known for. 

Setup is easy; you’ll complete an intake form, confirm we’ve got your most recent logo, and in no time you’ll be part of a network-effect magnet for consumers. Who would miss an opportunity for more engagement? 

You partnered with Kasasa for more, and that’s exactly what we’re delivering — more consumers, more support, more differentiation. You’re part of the Kasasa network, and this is the network at work for you.   

Are you ready? 

Venessa Van Ameyde 

COO 

You recently heard from Alisha that your voice was heard, and that we’re pushing our partnership with you to the next level to help you push your success to the next level. 

One of the things we looked hard at was: How do we better align ourselves to best support our clients and their current business needs? Especially when they’ve told us they want us to be more proactive with our consulting, and to be there in their community again.  

So, I want to break down how we plan to do that — the specific roles and who will be the main point of contact for each of your team members. The Client Director will be the main point of contact with the executive team responsible for things like strategy, performance, and the overall relationship. If you’re a marketing person, you’ll work most closely with the Client Marketing Manager, responsible for the planning and performance reporting of your marketing programs. The Retail Consultant will work with the retail leaders, including front-line staff, for optimizing in-branch selling and customer service. 

We’ve created robust POD teams to support you, which means there are several additional team members that can help with specific needs. Just go through the Support Center and your need will automatically be routed to the appropriate person. And when in doubt, you can always ask your Client Director.  

And because we’re dedicated to on-site, regionalized support, you may experience a shift in the individuals who serve your account. But don’t worry…if that’s the case, we’re making that transition gradually and thoroughly over the next few months. For example, if you previously had me as a Client Success Manager and Alisha was going to be your new Client Director, you can be assured that I’m creating a thorough transition document to share with her, and you can expect to see both of us on some future calls for introduction and smooth transition.  

Thank you for partnering with Kasasa. We appreciate you more than you know. And I’m really excited to see how your team, with elevated support from our team, can make people even prouder of where they choose to do their banking.

Fintechs, neobanks, and megabanks have tried to steal your market share for years. And for too long there was very little that community banks and credit unions could do about it.  

Kasasa has done everything in our power to help. But year after year the competition gobbles up more market share. It started to feel inevitable.  

Thankfully, that’s about to change. Our power to help our clients just got a whole lot bigger.  

We’re on the cusp of launching a broad awareness campaign and  adding search functionality to our updated website that will expand your reach and visibility to consumers. It all starts with building up a steady stream of consumers who value banking local without sacrificing a premium user experience. 

Once this effort reaches full speed, consumers will have every reason to choose a community financial institution for all their banking needs. You’ve got the best service and the best products. Now you’ll have the full scale of a national brand powering your growth.  

Today is a good day to be a community bank or credit union. And Kasasa is proud to tell consumers why they should only be doing business with you. 

You made your voice clear — in person, via surveys, even through the grapevine. And we heard you. You need more consultative, valuable, and relationship-focused support. You need reliable, data-driven results and innovation that drives profitability. And all of it needs to be easy and dependable.

Using a regionalized, face-to-face team approach, we simplified and strengthened your support team at Kasasa. Each role at your institution has an equivalent subject matter expert. Your “pod” is responsible for your growth, performance, strategic planning, and process optimization.

But that’s not all. In addition, your primary contact, your Client Director, is now regionalized and will visit you onsite frequently. Every quarter, we get a chance to truly calibrate your strategy and move proactively together in a changing environment. And we’re going to make the most of it.

This is a partnership. We only succeed if you succeed.
We are going all-in on you and your success. We are committed to delivering on our promise to provide customized, strategic, value-based consultative support to you and your teams. I am humbled and honored to fight this fight with you. Your confidence and trust in us is something I take to heart every day. Your mission and the powerful impact we can all make together for every consumer is the reason we exist. I am not alone — every member of the team has been hand-selected with the same commitment in mind. Client Success at Kasasa is leveling up, for you. We love you… like really, really love you!

In our client-insider video series, you’ll continue to see how we are repositioning our entire organization to help you thrive in the current environment and into the future. In my video, you’ll see how incredibly excited I am about this. I hope you are, too. I know you have big goals, and I also know you need a powerful and robust support system in place to help you reach those goals. Now you have it.

Let’s go big together.

It’s so important that you hear this information that I shared it twice: in this email and in a quick video summary.

I’m incredibly excited to share with you a development I believe will change the way you’re able to do business forever. 

I think we all agree that the pandemic “sped up” the adoption of digital banking behaviors. Now, the scramble is on to meet consumer expectations. And then the big risk, after you commit to investing money and time, will it earn you a place in their wallet? After all, consumer awareness of community financial institutions remains dismally low...while fintechs like Chime and SoFi acquire tens of millions of consumers overnight.

We’re about to change all that. Together.

Think about it, your collective scale is truly “Mega.” If you, our partner community bank and credit unions, were a single financial institution, you would be the 8th largest bank in the country in assets and constitute the second-largest branch network. You serve 33MM consumers. And I’m proud to say we’re the only fintech whose mission – for 19 years – is to fight for community financial institutions. We’re ready to fight back and win like never before. Our fight is not about disrupting or tearing down – it’s about restoring you to your rightful role as the go-to place in your community for financial products and services.

In the coming weeks, we’ll let you know how we’re going to get there. You’ll see a new look for Kasasa, you’ll see our name in the media, but you’ll see that we are bringing the message about community financial institutions back to where your impact is most important: your community.

It’s a big vision. Here’s how it'll start.

Kasasa will be hitting the airwaves, digital landscape, and anywhere else to tell the world about Kasasa Reward Checking and Kasasa Loans. Consumers will go to our website or app to learn more, where they will see a listing of community financial institutions – including yours! – in their area that offer Kasasa products. This is a very big, very bold initiative – one designed to help community financial institutions reclaim market share, and help consumers keep their money local with institutions that offer the service, care, and compassion for the community they deserve.

We’re going all-in on our partnership with you like never before.

We’re also making a huge investment in client success by significantly growing the client support team – and we’ve adjusted our client support model proactively to help you meet the support and structure challenges you face. Your primary point of contact will now be regionalized, meaning they’ll be local and onsite, providing that strategic, consultative value.

Keep an eye out for emails just for clients like you from the team at Kasasa, your client newsletter, and in-person event invitations, and I’ll talk to you soon. 

Let’s do this.

We’d love to hear any thoughts or questions you may have. Fill out the form and let’s start some meaningful dialogue.