It’s been an eventful week for Wilmington financial technology firm Apiture.
 
Tuesday, the company announced that it has partnered with Alacriti, a fintech company that develops new ways for customers of credit unions and banks to make loan payments across a variety of channels and methods. Customers can also select whether to make a payment one time, on a recurring basis or automatically.

Apiture’s platform has now integrated with Alacriti’s Orbipay Platform, Tuesday’s news release stated, adding, “Banks and credit unions using [Apiture] can leverage Alacriti’s Orbipay to integrate a brand-customized portal where customers and members can view, schedule, and manage their payment transactions such as electronic bill payments for auto and mortgage loans.”

Credit union members and bank customers have been requesting a greater variety of payment options, and this new partnership adds that flexibility within the Apiture platform, Apiture COO Chris Cox said Friday. He pointed out that financial institutions using the platform can now offer customers the option of making electronic loan payments with their debit or credit card.

Apiture’s second piece of good news this week was notification from Javelin Strategy & Research that it had scored a high ranking in Javelin’s 2021 Digital Banking Platform Vendor Scorecard. In Javelin’s “Best in Class” ratings, Apiture earned silver.

“Apiture, based in Wilmington, N.C., is a powerful newcomer in the space and ranks second overall on the Javelin scorecard,” Javelin’s announcement stated. “Apiture’s Xpress platform tightly integrates account and transactional data to provide consumers with forward-looking advice and actionable account insight.”

Javelin, which specializes in research and analysis in the digital financial world, evaluated 11 vendors of digital banking platforms, using more than 260 criteria. It looked especially at what it calls “three essential pillars” of digital banking platforms: functionality, experience and engagement, and development and delivery. Cox said sometimes a fintech’s ability to develop and deliver new features of its platform can “get a little lost” in overall ratings, and he was especially happy that Javelin's assessments included that element.

“It means how quickly and effectively you can push innovation, and we’re really good at it,” he said.

Javelin ratings can help financial institutions familiarize themselves with the offerings of platform providers and help them “select the best combination of features and support to deliver a more personalized and engaging digital banking experience for their customers,” according to the release.

This week’s announcements cap what Cox said has been a very good year for Apiture. In addition to the new partnership with Alacriti, the Wilmington fintech added digital payments network Zelle and a new customer engagement chat feature to its platform. There’s also a new mobile banking solution that delivers new features faster, he added.

“We also refreshed our online banking user experience, redesigning it so it looks modern, new, innovative,” Cox said. “It is delivered to the end-user, but branded by the financial institution.”

Most of Apiture clients are community banks and credit unions, institutions that choose to outsource their digital banking development and deployment rather than to maintain an in-house team.

“Our mission is to make sure that community banks and credit unions have what they need to grow in today’s digital market,” Cox said. “In 2021, Apiture fulfilled that promise by delivering a lot of new things. We will continue to do that going forward.”