First Farmers Bank and Trust: An Innovative Approach to Digital Account Opening

Problem

First Farmers Bank and Trust (FFBT), a $3.2 billion-asset community bank based in Converse, Ind., had relied on its legacy account opening system for more than 20 years. It required roughly 45 minutes per account opening and every account signatory needed to be present, but it worked. Still, it was not an ideal process in today’s digital era, so the bank began to explore streamlining options for digital account opening.

“We had to look at our processes,” said Paige Musselman, director of retail products and innovation at the bank. “Are they set up for how we should be working in 2026? Just because we have always done it one way doesn’t mean it’s right for today. Can we do it better now?”

The answer to that question jumped out at Musselman when she heard about Prelim, an ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator alum providing a deposit account opening and customer maintenance platform for banks that handles consumer and business account onboarding across branch, online, and mobile channels from a single system.

ICBA Innovation Impact

78% Time Saving

With Prelim in place, First Farmers Bank and Trust reduced its digital account opening process time from 45 minutes to approximately 10 minutes across business and consumer accounts.

86% Increase in Digital Account Openings

With Prelim Support, First Farmers Bank and Trust saw an 86% increase in digital account openings through the first half of 2026.

100% Decline in Identity Fraud

Before Prelim, First Farmers Bank and Trust had a problem with identity fraud in account openings. Since implementation, they’ve had zero incidents.

Process

While Musselman was intrigued by Prelim’s solution, she also realized it would require significant integration with the bank’s core provider, Fiserv. Fortunately for the bank, Fiserv was already engaged with Prelim to support customer use cases.

“About three years ago, we decided to open up our ecosystem and partner directly with fintechs, and Prelim was one of the first,” said Matt Wilcox, chief banking officer, Fiserv. “We recognized that many community bank growth strategies involve fintech partnerships, and we wanted to be a primary partner to those fintechs to help them reach those markets, while also supporting our core clients’ growth strategies.”

That connection made Prelim a strong contender for FFBT’s business. “The core partnership really matters for solutions like account opening,” said Heang Chan, cofounder and co-CEO of Prelim. “You need a lot of functionality to be that software that sits on top of their core. So, we’ve become that user operating system that certifies our deployments with the cores, and in this case, Fiserv.”

“Having Prelim for our account opening solution has been a game changer. We went from 45 minutes per account opening down to 10 minutes with zero identity fraud. It’s amazing how well it's been working.”

- Paige Musselman, Director of Retail Products and Innovation

That working knowledge of Fiserv also helped Prelim stand out amongst account opening providers, said Musselman (FFBT was managing integrations using a core-specific service-oriented architecture solution). While other providers spoken with confirmed their products would work on that platform, Prelim advised FFBT to shift to Fiserv’s Communicator Open for a better experience. That recommendation, which could have cost Prelim FFBT’s business (if they weren’t open to a switch), impressed Musselman and sealed the decision to move forward with Prelim.

“Prelim was the only one that really pushed us to say, ‘It's worth making the effort to get Communicator Open,’” said Musselman. “And it definitely has been. We’re so glad we moved to Communicator Open; it's a lot easier.”

Because Prelim has a premium integration plan with Fiserv, they were able to streamline the time required to build the core integration. Even with the added complication of FFBT’s unique on-premises hosting, the community bank was up and running with Prelim’s consumer digital product five months after their migration to Communicator Open. Subsequent product rollouts for business digital account opening, in-branch consumer account opening, in-branch digital account opening, and more are slated for the near term, staggering launches every two-to-three months.

“Once the front-end integrations happened, it was really quick,” shared Musselman. “What's nice is we have the same people working on the project from product lifecycle management all the way through, so, they know us.”

Performance

In addition to simply creating a better experience, the Prelim digital account opening integration, supported by Fiserv, has helped FFBT’s business. Specifically, Musselman reports:

  • A streamlined digital account opening process, taking the experience from 45 minutes to 10.

  • 86% increase in digital account openings, due in part to the Prelim integration.

  • Zero identity fraud. Before engaging with Prelim, at one point, FFBT had 20 fraudulent accounts open they had to close. Since engaging with Prelim, they have had none.

Overall, FFBT credits the collaborative partnership they have with Prelim as a key to their success.

“You want a partner who’s good with technology, obviously, but with Prelim, they're all about wanting to use technology for good—to just be able to better serve their customers, and in turn, their customers are better able to serve their communities.”

In Prelim, the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator brought forth a solution that helps address a top community bank pain point, and as the company continues to grow and evolve, they do so with an eye toward servicing community banks.

“The ThinkTECH Accelerator really helped us understand what community banks need. We deployed deposit account onboarding for the bank, but now we want to be the AI origination layer as well. We are working on making that layer accessible to community banks, and at the same time, powered by the best technology out there. So, keep an eye out for what’s coming,” said Chan.

Learn more about the ICBA ThinkTECH Accelerator and other ICBA Innovation programming at icba.org/innovation.