Berkshire seamlessly integrated two additional layers of Narmi Guard, Vouched, and NeuroID to mitigate fraud more effectively while maintaining a smooth user experience for legitimate customers.
Berkshire leveraged Narmi’s unified platform to create an engaging digital-first experience with features like refer-a-friend, credit score monitoring, and payroll integrations.
Narmi worked hand-in-hand with Berkshire to ensure that every solution was tailored to the bank’s unique needs, ultimately achieving 55% growth in total deposits across digital channels since launch of Berkshire One.
Berkshire Bank has been serving the Northeast region since 1846, with a steadfast commitment to providing convenient, human-centered financial services. Over the past decade, the bank has made nine strategic acquisitions, expanding its footprint while staying true to its community-focused values. Today, Berkshire aims to blend its traditional values with the demands of a digital-first world with the launch of Berkshire One —- a digital-first suite of banking services designed to prioritize the needs of today’s modern customer.
“The vision of Berkshire One is to give customers another venue to bank with us and provide an omni-channel approach to the customer, allowing customers who bank digitally to be serviced in the branch, and similarly allow in-person banking customers to be serviced digitally,” said Sumant Pustake, EVP Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer. Together, Pustake and Sara Pultman, Head of Digital Deposit Strategy, partnered closely with Narmi to successfully launch this new offering, pushing the boundaries of what a human-led, digital-first bank can achieve in today’s rapidly evolving financial landscape.
Berkshire knew that an increase in risk was inevitable when launching a digital-first suite of attractive offerings. While Berkshire had already been working with Alloy, a KYC solution provider, through Narmi, their ambitions for Berkshire One required enhancements to further mitigate fraud risks without slowing down growth.
“The potential for fraud in digital account openings is high,” explained Pustake. “When you’re putting marketing dollars behind a digital offering, you need to make sure you’re putting the necessary tools in place to review applications at scale."
Berkshire turned to Narmi to help optimize their KYC process. Narmi recommended integrating two new platforms—NeuroID and Vouched—into Berkshire’s existing Alloy framework. These enhancements would allow the bank to mitigate fraud more effectively while maintaining a smooth user experience for legitimate customers.
“When Narmi presented the idea of adding NeuroID and Vouched, it was something we had already been considering. The integrations were seamless, and the strong relationship we had with Narmi made this an easy decision,” said Pustake.
In parallel, Berkshire also onboarded Narmi’s Native NACHA solution for manual funding, further streamlining their ACH processing. By bringing the functionality in-house, the bank was able to manage ACH transactions more efficiently and increase funding limits, all while maintaining full control over the process. This transition not only reduced operational costs, but alsoprovided a smoother experience for customers during the funding process.
The results were immediate. Fraud detection improved, and manual reviews were significantly reduced, saving both time and manpower. In September, a fraud ring attempted a coordinated attack, trying to open 17 accounts from the same funding source. With the new protections in place, none of those applications were successfully opened.
These two initiatives allowed Berkshire to drive the amount of traffic they needed for Berkshire One to reach their goals without compromising on security, resulting in a 31% increase in the average size of deposits in just two months after the launch of Berkshire One.
The partnership with Narmi has been instrumental. “Narmi has always been an incredible advocate for us,” Pultman emphasized. “They truly understand what we’re trying to accomplish, and they’ve been essential in helping us refine and optimize our KYC processes.”
1. Onboarded Narmi’s Native NACHA solution to streamline ACH processing while improving the customer experience
2. 100% success rate halting attempted account opening fraud ring
3. 31% growth in average size of initial deposit since launch of Berkshire One
When Berkshire Bank set out to launch Berkshire One, the goal was clear: create a digital-first offering that would attract new customers while keeping the bank’s existing depositors engaged. The bank needed to move quickly and roll out specific offerings that would stand out in a competitive digital banking space.
“We were aiming to bring modern, in-demand features like refer-a-friend programs, credit score monitoring, and even payroll integrations—but we had to do it fast,” said Pustake. “With our legacy systems, these implementations could have taken a year or more. We couldn’t afford to wait that long.”
Berkshire needed a partner that could provide the flexibility and speed necessary to bring these offerings to market in a matter of weeks, not months.
Using Narmi’s unified platform, the bank was able to launch essential capabilities through partnerships, such as enabling deposit-switching in just four weeks—a timeline that would have taken over a year with a traditional provider.
“Narmi’s platform gave us the flexibility to ideate and go live within weeks, something that simply wasn’t possible before,” explained Pustake.
With newly streamlined processes, Berkshire's marketing team now has more time to focus on growth strategies. “We’re not just innovating for innovation’s sake. We’re constantly improving, because expectations in the digital space are always evolving,” said Pustake.
This partnership extended far beyond just technical implementation. Narmi worked hand-in-hand with Berkshire to ensure that every solution was tailored to the bank’s unique needs, making sure that the account opening experience would present the best products for each applicant. “Narmi always thinks outside the box to help us deliver a better experience to our customers,” noted Pultman. “Their flexibility and innovation have been essential in making Berkshire One a success.”
Thanks to Narmi’s unified platform and close partnership with the Berkshire team, Berkshire One is doing more than just attracting new customers—it’s retaining existing depositors in a competitive market. “Deposit retention is critical," explained Pustake. "We know that customers who won’t go into a branch are likely to shop around and switch banks.
"With Berkshire One, we’re giving them another venue to bank with us. People tend to focus on growth and new customer acquisition, but reducing customer attrition is a form of growth as well. And that’s where Berkshire One really shines.”
Since its launch in June, Berkshire One has contributed to a 55% growth in deposits through digital channels. “We wouldn’t be surprised if in the next three-to-six months, we bring in more deposits than we have in the entire history of our digital channels,” said Pustake. “That’s the power of a flexible, unified platform, and a true partnership with Narmi.”
GAFCU wanted to offer CDs in the CAO platform but didn’t want to have to manually send CD receipts every time an account was opened. This labor-intensive method inhibited staff from capitalizing on a channel crucial for deposit growth. Narmi's platform customizations provided a solution: automated delivery of personalized CD receipts to each account holder via email.
Asset Size: $300M
Location: Paramus, NJ
Products: Consumer Digital Banking, Digital Account Opening
GAFCU encountered difficulties promoting additional product offerings, particularly with their CD accounts. They came to Narmi for a solution that could help them effectively cross-sell their CD products.
Narmi's platform customization streamlines operations for GAFCU’s staff, and will enable GAFCU to significantly reduce manual efforts spent on tracking and sending CD receipts.
Grasshopper’s support team historically used Zendesk to manage their client support operations. However, ensuring client conversations on the Narmi support portal remained consistent with the conversations on Zendesk took valuable time away from their support team. Using Narmi’s platform customizations, Narmi built a full integration between Zendesk and the Narmi support portal, saving Grasshopper’s support team over 30 hours each week on manual tasks.
Asset Size: $820MM
Location: New York, NY
Products: Business Digital Banking
Grasshopper recognized the need to optimize their workflow by automating the connection between Zendesk and the Narmi messaging platform. This desire stemmed from a commitment to enhance operational efficiency and streamline processes.
Through this integration, Grasshopper can take full advantage of their existing tech stack. Reclaiming the 30 hours it took to copy messages from Zendesk to the Narmi platform allows Grasshopper’s support team to redirect their focus towards high-impact initiatives and delivering exceptional client experiences.
UFCU’s team was experiencing a high volume of applications that needed to be manually flagged, and they wanted to incorporate a tool into their risk management stack that could help relieve that burden. In partnership with Narmi, UFCU adopted NeuroID to automatically flag and decision for risky applications and send staff notifications when there are incidences of fraudulent activity. Now, UFCU’s staff can sit back and relax knowing that NeuroID is automatically decisioning on those risky applications, even when there’s a fraud attack.
“There were 33 applications that were declined outright on Sunday when otherwise it would have gone to Review or Accepted. This addresses Synthetic fraud which is difficult to track.”
- Russell Shugart
Asset Size: $4.5B
Location: Austin, TX
Products: Consumer Account Opening
UFCU was experiencing fraudulent applications moving to “review” or “approved” status. These applications required constant manual review, causing their staff to be bogged down and overwhelmed when there was a fraud attack.
With NeuroID catching risky applications and automatically decisioning them, UFCU’s staff saves hours every week. In the short time since implementation, Russell calculated that NeuroID saves more than 40 hours a month in manual review time and helps UFCU avoid charge-offs averaging $400 per fraudulent account. With Narmi’s close integration with NeuroID, UFCU can more reliably trust application decisions, giving them a safety net when experiencing intense fraud attacks.
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