CSI Acquires Apiture to Bolster Community Banking

Financial software firm CSI is acquiring digital banking solutions provider Apiture.

“Apiture and CSI share a customer-first approach to financial innovation,” Nancy Langer, president and CEO of CSI, said in a news release Tuesday (Aug. 19).

“By integrating Apiture’s industry-leading capabilities, especially in business banking, we are creating an even more robust platform that empowers community financial institutions to compete and grow. This combination allows us to deliver the scale, speed and innovation our customers need while staying true to the relationship-driven service that has always defined community and regional banking.”

The deal, set to conclude in the fourth quarter of this year, is designed to provide “an integrated ecosystem of scalable technologies” for financial institutions, no matter their core provider, the release added.

“Through enhanced data and analytics capabilities, financial institutions can better personalize their customers’ digital experiences and empower them with proactive financial guidance, thereby deepening relationships and engagement,” the release said.

By integrating Apiture’s digital business and consumer banking platform — which includes account onboarding, open banking and data and analytics capabilities —  community and regional financial institutions can position themselves as “the primary financial relationship for customers,” the companies said.

The acquisition is happening at a time when community and regional banks are being challenged to adapt to the demands of a digital-first world or risk obsolescence, as PYMNTS wrote recently.

“Throughout the history of financial services, community banks have played a vital role in local economies,” PYMNTS wrote.

“They provide loans to small businesses, serve underbanked communities and offer a level of customer service that megabanks can’t easily replicate. Yet they now face unprecedented pressure, ranging from stablecoins to FinTech platforms like Square and Block seeking to ‘bank their base.’ It’s a challenging landscape out there for smaller banks, and that’s not even including competition from larger financial institutions.”

Modernization, that report said, is not easy when banking tech stacks are a century older than the iPhone. And new insights from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s 2025 Request for Information (RFI) on community bank digitalization suggest the problem isn’t just financial, but also architectural.

“Most community and regional banks are constrained by decades-old core systems with brittle integrations and limited data portability,” PYMNTS added.

“These legacy platforms, which are often built on COBOL and patched over time, form the operational heart of community banks, managing deposits, loans and customer accounts. But they also function as chokepoints for innovation.”