When investors recapitalized the sleepy $165 million Capital Bank in Little Rock, Arkansas, and rebranded it Encore Bank in March 2019, its leaders immediately got to work building its foundation on a new type of tech stack. They wanted technology that would allow them to fulfill their mission of becoming the premier boutique commercial bank in the country.
Erin Simpson joined Encore Bank, a subsidiary of Encore Bancshares, as its chief risk officer just nine months after the launch. Promoted a year later to chief operations officer and executive vice president, she was among the leaders who revamped the way the bank’s technology would be developed and implemented, relying largely on nimble fintech vendors and integrations through application programming interfaces (APIs).
The only piece of technology kept from the old regime was the core banking system provided by Smiley Technologies, whose leaders understood Encore Bank’s vision, Simpson says. Everything else went out the window. Encore would become sleepy no more.
“The goal was to identify solutions that we could easily and quickly integrate,” Simpson says. “We want these to be interchangeable. We want to be able to plug and play with these different technologies to see what are going to be the best solutions for our clients.’”
Because another of the bank’s goals was to run light on full-time employees, they have no developers on their small IT team. That means they outsource the development of their technology solutions to fintech providers.
Solved It: Integrating Across Platforms
Encore Bank first looked to find a vendor it could partner with to build a loan origination system (LOS). The bank selected Hawthorn River to develop a custom LOS for a seamless workflow that handled applications, credit assessments, approvals, document processing and funding.
Encore Bank executives realized they also needed a middleware layer and data warehouse that the LOS and other solutions could plug into and access for easy integration. They tapped Core 10, which designed and implemented its Mesh platform for the bank.
“The ultimate goal is to build end-to-end technology, where we are not ever entering the same data for a client more than once,” Simpson says. “So, if we enter it to open an account, we can use that same data to originate and onboard treasury, to originate loans, to do anything else that we need to do for that client – where everything is interconnected through APIs.”
Encore Bank then turned its attention to treasury management. While Smiley Technologies offered a business banking platform, Encore’s leadership wanted to find a solution that better fit their needs. Wanting to ensure their core provider was on board with that idea, Simpson says she approached the CEO of Smiley Technologies with a proposition to outsource that functionality. “And Smiley’s answer was, ‘If that’s what’s in the best interest of the bank, absolutely,’” Simpson says.
Encore ultimately selected Q2 to design and implement a premier suite of treasury products for the bank. The integration also allowed for commercial clients to be onboarded and activated across both banking and treasury management accounts using a single data set. Encore even integrated its underwriting processes. That means the bank evaluates risk for loans and credit approvals in the same system and automatically sets credit limits for treasury management services like ACH or wire transfers once the process is completed.
But along with traditional commercial banking, Encore also set up its own verticals for title and escrow services, association banking, property management and law firm banking – all built with integrations into the various accounting software platforms used by their clients in those industries. This includes direct integrations with specialized accounting platforms and other enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as well. “So, your QuickBooks, Sage, NetSuite, those things,” Simpson explains.
The bank’s unique approach to its tech stack has been successful. Encore Bank now serves more than 2,000 corporate and small-business clients through 19 offices in seven states, and has grown to more than $3.6 billion in assets in seven years.
But Encore Bank’s solutions have not only changed its own trajectory, they have benefited other financial institutions as well, says Eric Weikart, a partner at the consulting firm Cornerstone Advisors. CSI in 2023 purchased Hawthorn River and now implements its LOS for community banks. Trabian Technology in April 2025 purchased Mesh from Core 10 (which has since rebranded as Monarch), and now helps other banks integrate their systems through that middleware platform.
Weikart, who says he is also an investor in Encore Bank, feels the bank improved both of those fintech solutions. “It’s amazing how they were early in those companies’ stages, and they ended up being very successful, each of those fintechs,” he says.
Solved It: Annual Contract Reviews
To make that growth and reach possible, the bank currently works with more than 40 fintech providers. While the seamless integration brings efficiencies both externally and internally, it also requires a proactive approach to identifying and mitigating potential risks.
Karla Dial, Encore Bank’s executive vice president, chief information and data officer, says vendor management is always top of mind. “Mitigating third-party risk is critical because of how technology heavy we are,” she says. “And if your program is not sound and tight, then things could go sideways. So, something that we really value is our ability to speed to market, ensuring everything’s tied to the boat before we go.”
Dial leads the bank’s technology, innovation, risk and operations committee, which is responsible for continuously monitoring and evaluating the bank’s fintech vendors. While Encore Bank has longer-term agreements with Smiley Technologies, Q2 and a few other vendors, most are one-year contracts.
“At first, they were a little bit caught off guard,” Simpson says. “They would be like, ‘You’re not going to renew your contract with us?’ And we would explain to them, ‘We do this every year. This is for you to see if we’re a good fit for you and you to see if you’re still a good fit for us, and we’re going to renegotiate these terms at this time.’”
Weikart believes many fintechs are willing to go along with that approach because Encore Bank works with them to make their products better. “Helping them figure things out is a big reason that it’s not just a contract relationship, it’s a partnership,” Weikart says. “While that fintech now sells three-to-five-year deals, they were in early stages [and] that kind of got them where they were.”
In reality, Simpson says very few vendors fail to get renewed, but the bank has and will continue to change them out when needed to continue providing the most efficient technologies for their clients.
Before new projects move forward, Dial says they undergo a full security and risk review. Once that approval is in place, her IT team focuses on determining the best path forward. “We design the solution and oversee how it’s built,” Dial says. “Our role is making sure the right solution comes together, even if we’re not the ones doing the actual development.”
Because of all those factors, Simpson says Encore Bank believes it can serve commercial clients better than a lot of other banks. “We’re saying, ‘OK, what can these businesses get from these big, big banks that they typically can’t get from the smaller, more community and regional banks? We’re going to create this so that they can have the concierge experience where they’re not calling a call center, but they’re still getting the products and services that the big banks offer,’” she says. “We’re trying to give them the best of both worlds.”
If you have a suggestion for a future bank or credit union to profile in “How I Solved It,” please contact me at gneumann@bankdirector.com.
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