The predecessor to Stone Bank in Mountain View wrestled with a federal cease-and-desist order for five years, but the bank now is at the forefront of banking technology in Arkansas.
Ozark Heritage Bank was issued the order in 2010. The bank had grown too fast, from $12 million in assets in 2009 to $66 million in 2010 and had some problem loans. It took until 2015 before the problems were cleaned up and federal regulators terminated the order.
Now Stone Bank -- the bank's name since 2015 -- has opened the state's first branch that combines an interactive automated teller machine and eliminated live tellers.
Stone Bank built the branch in White Hall, near Pine Bluff, just off Interstate 530.
The bank paid about $600,000 for the land in White Hall and $2.4 million for the branch, said Marnie Oldner, Stone Bank's chief executive officer. Oldner joined the bank as a consultant to the board in 2010 in the middle of the financial problems. She was named chief executive officer in 2011.
Other features of the branch include a table where any device can be charged, a coffee bar, a television and an outdoor covered pavilion with a full kitchen for community groups to use.
The highlight is the interactive teller machine, which offers a video remote teller to assist the customer.
The screen is larger than a regular ATM, giving customers the option for an ATM transaction or to push a button to speak to a teller.
"[The teller] can walk you through any transaction you can do across the counter," said Kirby Williams, chief retail banking officer. "The machine can scan your license or scan your checks."
When the customer pushes the button to talk with a bank representative, the teller may not be at the branch where the customer is, Williams said.
"We may have a call center in Little Rock that is handling all the interactive teller machines," Williams said. "Or it may be someone in our bank in Harrison or Mountain View."
Stone Bank plans to have six of the machines throughout its system, Williams said. It also has a full-service office in Little Rock and lending offices in Cave City and Fayetteville.
The machines cost about $90,000, some $30,000 more than a traditional ATM.
"The great thing is it allows us to extend our hours, and not just by having a cash dispenser," Williams said.
The machine can issue any amount of cash. If a customer has a check for $125.78, the machine can pay out the money to the penny. It is not limited to issuing only $20 bills.
That can come in handy with about 1,400 shift workers in close proximity to the branch, including a new pellet mill and a Tyson Foods plant. Stone Bank will gauge times the machine needs to be available, whether it is at shift change times or other times.
"This is our beta [test] branch," Williams said. "We're going to have other branches, but they are going to be built on this model."
Plans already have been completed for the next branch, which will be a 6,600-square-foot facility in Harrison. The White Hall branch is 4,800 square feet.
Bill Holmes, president of the Arkansas Bankers Association, said Stone Bank's high-tech White Hall branch is "the first full-service operation of its kind [in the state], to my knowledge."
"That's without having the normal teller line, having universal bankers instead of tellers and also the training you can give the customers," Holmes said.
Holmes expects that there are a number of other banks planning to open similar branches.
"That's certainly something other banks are looking at but have not yet put in place," Holmes said.
Banking has always had two sides, Oldner said: The high-traffic, high-transactional, little-personal-attention side of banking and private banking for the wealthy.
"If you're worth enough, you get attention," she said. "What we would love to marry is private banking for everybody. There could be a high-tech solution for those familiar with technology. Or if you want, just having somebody you could talk to."
If there is a reason a customer can't go to the bank, Stone Bank will go to the customer's home or office, said Bruce Upton, chief operations officer.
Upton, Stone Bank's expert on technology, created a portable kit devised to offer banking outside the branch. It offers a customer the ability to sign a document on a computer screen; a wireless printer; a wireless connection to the branch; and a scanner to scan checks or a driver's license.
"The only thing it can't do [outside the branch] is create a debit card," Upton said. "That's just because we can't take that debit card printer back and forth out of the branch."
Upton owned Blu 3, an auditing and internet security company, for years. Blu 3 had 94 banking clients in Arkansas out of about 100 banks in the state, with 400 banking clients in the region.
Upton decided to sell his business. Later, in 2015, he went to work full time for Oldner. Williams also sold his marketing company and joined Oldner in 2015. Upton and Williams had been consultants for Stone Bank for at least two years.
Williams, Oldner and Upton have known each other for years and often have discussed what an ideal bank branch would be, Williams said.
"We stole ideas from Waffle House to AT&T stores," Williams said. "We have a different customer service model, we have a different work flow, we're using technology in a different way."
One imaginative idea is a Rock the Bank mobile app that Upton created.
A customer can click on the app and shake his cellphone, and his latest account balance pops up on the screen.
"It seems like a silly little thing, but people love that," Williams said.
SundayMonday Business on 05/07/2017