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New Atlantic Central Bankers Bank Subsidiary Offers Member Community Banks Advanced IP Telephony

Posted on: Tuesday, 7 March 2006, 09:00 CST

Banking Infrastructure & Technology Services Unit Offers One Connection, One Solution

Atlantic Central Bankers Bank (ACBB), whose shareholder base consists of more than 300 community banks throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, today announced the launch of a new telecommunications and technology services unit, Banking Infrastructure & Technology Services (BITS), that for the first time will provide member banks with one-stop shopping for advanced Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony and converged voice, video, image and data communications services.

"Until now, the Community Banking industry has lacked a central source of advanced telecommunications, data and IP expertise, even as large national banks are spending huge sums to upgrade their banks' infrastructure to compete with us," said Jon S. Evans, President & CEO of ACBB. "But today, that is changing. Instead of a cumbersome and expensive process involving multiple communications service and hardware providers, community banks now have the opportunity to create one network, one connection and one solution for their advanced customer services requirements - Banking Infrastructure & Technology Services."

Heading up the new ACBB-BITS unit is CEO Chuck Daniels, a technology and telecommunications veteran with a wealth of industry experience spanning network and enterprise telecommunications technologies for IP voice, data, Internet and Wireless. "I am fortunate to lead Banking Infrastructure & Technology Services in pursuit of Jon's vision for community banking that is more efficient, technologically savvy and competitively superior to the large national banks," he said.

"BITS' converged network communications solution draws upon world class leaders in IP telephony, security and transport to deliver state-of-the-art communications that are lower cost, less complex, scalable and support an expanded menu of easier and more accessible banking services to accommodate today's local banking customer." Daniels said that community bank executives don't want to be telecommunications experts. "Their business is banking, not telecommunications," he said. "Their focus is their community and their goal is to create the kinds of services their customers need. We also help them lower the overall cost of their communications network, improve operational efficiency, enhance employee productivity, while offering superior disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities.

What makes ACBB-BITS unique is that its target market, 500 community banks with 5,000 branch locations in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware, is already buying services from ACBB. And almost 300 of them are shareholders of ACBB.

Nor do community banks have to worry that ACCB-BITS will simply provide competitors with the same level of communications expertise. In creating BITS, ACBB restricted BITS to serving only ACBB shareholder banks.

Daniels said that until ACBB-CBITS, local community banks were unable to fully harness their considerable purchasing power to drive down costs or obtain significant discounts from outside vendors. "With BITS," he said, "community banks know they are going to get the best possible price on hardware and services because they are our owners and because our goal isn't to run up a huge profit but rather to enable community banks to compete more effectively and efficiently against larger banks."

Among the immediate advantages BITS provides community banks are:

-- end-to-end converged communication service network capable of seamlessly handling all voice, video, image and data communications;

-- advanced technologies, such as IP Telephony, MPLS, unified messaging, video conferencing and IP surveillance;

-- Implement enhanced correspondent services such as Check 21 and image-based loan participation.

Lower costs

-- Save up to 20% on monthly cost for voice and data communication services;

-- Receive IP hardware at BITS' partner discount with zero mark-up.

One single provider for voice and data communications

-- Flat rate pricing for voice, data, Internet and video conferencing

-- Single point of contact for customer service and support

-- Single network for voice, data, surveillance, wireless and ATM

Trustworthy affiliation

-- Funded by and fully owned by community banks and ACBB, an organization looking out for its members

-- Providing our services exclusively to ACBB community banks

A turn key solution

-- Converged network equipment and communication services deployed within three months of signing a contract

-- Installation managed by our existing partners and will not affect day-to-day operations or tie up internal IT resources

Enhance security and network redundancy

-- Complete data encryption within BITS' entire MPLS-VPN network;

-- Around the clock network security and surveillance;

-- Fully redundant network with two cluster locations;

-- High level SLAs (Service Level Agreements)

About Banking Infrastructure & Technology Services

Banking Infrastructure & Technology Services (BITS), the technology and telecommunication subsidiary of Atlantic Central Bankers Bank, provides community banks with sophisticated converged networks and advanced IP Telephony. By leveraging the power of 500 ACBB members to negotiate lower costs, BITS provides community banks with a single, trusted source and solution for advanced IP voice and data communications. With offices in Newark, New Jersey, and Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, BITS serves community banks throughout New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. Visit us at www.acbb-bits.com (http://www.acbb-bits.com).

About Atlantic Central Bankers Bank

The mission of Atlantic Central Bankers Bank (ACBB) is to assist community banks in competing more effectively through enhanced credit and noncredit services while leveraging its aggregation capabilities. Originally chartered in 1983 as Pennsylvania Independent Bank, ACBB was formed from the initial capital provided by 73 community bank shareholders. The name was later changed in 1992 to more accurately reflect their marketplace and those of the shareholders in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and New York. Headquartered in Camp Hill, ACBB is a Pennsylvania state-chartered, Federal Reserve member bank serving over 300 shareholder banks in addition to many non-shareholder banks.

Source: Business Wire

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