Locality Bank and Tight's Partnership Makes Streamlined Invoicing Solutions Possible
Locality Bank is not just a de novo bank. They are a true community bank, serving Southeastern Florida businesses through meaningful personal relationships, comprehensive financing experience, and innovative technology. Locality Bank wants to grant its members more self-service capabilities with as little friction as possible. Their goal is to eliminate cumbersome formalities and unnecessary interactions, so members utilize in-branch services on an as-needed basis. Corey LeBlanc, CTO and Co-founder, knew from the organization’s inception that it was important to focus on the longevity of member relationships.
“It’s all about authentically empowering businesses to maximize their potential and success. Our members will never be forced to sit down with us if they don’t want to. And when they want face-to-face interactions, we are prepared. Those conversations are going to be as relevant and personalized as possible. If we’re asking them to do business with us, we need to create relevant value for them,” he said.
Locality Bank wanted a strong foundation that was flexible, agile, and responsive enough to grow alongside members’ changing needs. As a result, the platform is custom built on a cloud-native core banking system with open API architecture to quickly offer new innovative features as both the bank and member relationships continue to grow. However, as Locality Bank looked to expand its service offerings, they still experienced challenges finding equally flexible solutions that would integrate easily into their platform.
Finding an Invoicing Solution Flexible Enough for a Modern Banking Platform
As Corey was querying business owners to identify service gaps and challenges, he identified that they often needed three to six financial service relationships to manage an entire business end-to-end. And while these makeshift relationship systems met immediate needs, they were far from efficient and carried high operational costs.
“It became clear that smaller payment rails like invoicing—the ability to pay or get paid effectively within a reasonable cost margin—were really a problem. So, we started looking for invoicing solutions,” he said. But Locality Bank was disappointed by many of the available offerings.
“We talked to a lot of different companies that wanted to bolt a version of their standard experience onto our platform, maybe put our colors and logos at the top, and then charge us a premium price. Also, it would have taken two years for us to go to market because they weren’t going to prioritize us over larger institutions. I was getting ready to throw in the towel and focus on other objectives,” said Corey.
Then, he learned about Tight through his friend James Robert Lay, who interviewed Tight CEO and Co-founder Raj Bhaskar for the Banking for Digital Growth podcast. James spoke highly of Tight and encouraged Corey to reach out. After one conversation with Raj and Anu Bhaskar, Tight CTO and Co-founder, Locality Bank knew that from an architecture and concept standpoint, they had found just the right solution.
“The flexibility, the support, and the partnership that Tight's giving us is true collaboration. It’s what other institutions should be looking for when they sign contracts. Sit down with Tight for one conversation, because I knew during that first conversation. And I really want to emphasize not only how important the product itself is, but how important the people behind the product are. They exude authenticity,” said Corey.
Locality Bank’s online platform is custom built through a partnership with Nymbus. Their team was exploring the possibility of creating their own invoicing solution. But Corey called Nymbus, explained Tight's capabilities, and helped set up an introduction. Nymbus quickly signed a contract with Tight, and Locality Bank’s signed subcontract followed shortly thereafter. All of this took place within 45 days of Locality Bank and Tight's very first conversation.
Deliver Invoicing to Locality Bank Members with Tight's White-Labeled API
Since Tight is an API-driven solution, it allows Locality Bank to build the entire interface on its platform, creating a totally seamless user experience. Most importantly, Tight's 100% white-label capabilities allow the organization to offer advanced invoicing functionalities alongside consistent branding.
“We put a lot of work into building Locality Bank’s platform, so we want to have ownership and control of both our brand and the services that we produce. Tight's white-label capabilities were the most critical part of the decision-making process for us. When it comes down to it, that’s why we picked Tight,” said Corey.
The Tight team was especially influential when Locality Bank ran into significant challenges with their initial payment processor. The Tight team continued to explore integrations to other payment processing solutions. They ensured Locality Bank that the invoice offering would always work exactly as planned, regardless of which payment processor was chosen, and ultimately played a role in making that choice. Tight recommended Maast, and now Locality Bank has a reliable payment processor to ensure the invoicing solution will work smoothly at launch.
“I’m not interested in signing a partner contract for the product today. I want to sign a contract for the potential of the product. I want to know that we’re going to be able to build something together. Once I figured out that Tight could be with us for the long haul, it was a no-brainer,” said Corey.
Without the initial payment processing challenges, Tight would have been able to get Locality Bank’s invoicing solution to market within 90 days at a very low cost. Despite the delays, Tight still managed to reduce both the time Locality Bank allocated for dev resources and overall costs substantially.
“It allowed us to carry this project over the finish line without a major technical debt. It just proves that Raj and the Tight team are trying to make a difference, an actual impact in a positive way. It’s not just about revenue. It’s about the general principle of continuing to improve financial systems, and I just love those guys over at Tight,” said Corey.
Integrating More Tight Products Into New Service Offerings
Locality Bank officially launched their invoice offering in 2024. In the near future, they will integrate even more of Tight's products into their service offerings, including: expense tracking, income streams, financial reporting, and business intelligence. The overall objective is to create substantial value for Locality Bank members by providing a single, pane-of-glass view that reduces the time it takes to manage their businesses day-to-day.
“We want to give them better access to the real-time data that produces better insights, which in turn creates a greater value in our relationship together. A huge part of our success is strengthening those relationships. Tight's a key component of that, it’s what they’re helping us to do,” said Corey.
Locality Bank has already been beta testing several products, like tax calculations and tax reporting, with a select group of members and the Tight team. Once invoicing has launched, these solutions will soon follow. Having these services in place presents more market opportunities for Locality Bank, and a greater ability to cross-sell new products to their existing membership.
“The flexibility, the support, and the partnership that Tight's giving us is true collaboration. It’s what other institutions should be looking for when they sign contracts. Sit down with Tight for one conversation, because I knew during that first conversation. And I really want to emphasize not only how important the product itself is, but how important the people behind the product are. They exude authenticity,” said Corey.
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