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Pinwheel and Narmi first announced their partnership in July 2024, making Pinwheel’s industry-leading deposit switching solution easily available to Narmi platform customers. Due to the partnership’s success, Narmi and Pinwheel are expanding their partnership to enable Pinwheel’s full activation and engagement solution suite and even simpler rapid deployment options. In this article, Narmi Co-Founder, Nikhil Lakhanpal, and Pinwheel CEO & Co-Founder, Kurtis Lin, explain this strategic partnership and why these solutions matter to financial institutions of all sizes.
Kurtis: We were honored that you chose us as your direct deposit switch partner in 2024. What made Pinwheel the right choice for Narmi’s platform?
Nikhil: This isn’t news to you; Pinwheel has wide-ranging functionality, and use cases that apply to a range of industries. We were really impressed with your applications for digital banking, and how strong your “tunnels” to data providers to access and verify employment data were. It’s a strong, reliable connection. We think that deposit and bill switching should be a standard component of the onboarding process for all financial institutions, but it only works if there’s dependable technology operating on the back end.
Kurtis: Of all the features you could have pursued on Narmi’s roadmap, why did you prioritize deposit switch?
Nikhil: Deposit switch has always been on our radar – it’s something that bigger banks offer their customers, and it’s about time that we bring that kind of functionality to community banks and credit unions. But what really pushed us over the line was a series of client requests – further evidence that smaller financial institutions are looking to innovate in the direction of their larger competitors.
Kurtis: Your team has improved the Pinwheel integration since then, making it even easier for Narmi platform customers to turn on this feature. How will it work for your customers going forward?
Nikhil: We want it to be a core element of how our financial institutions understand onboarding for their customers/members. Internally here at Narmi, we’re pretty relentless in our mission to fight for these smaller financial institutions; a strong middle market in the banking industry benefits everyone. We throw around the term “primacy” a lot, but something like Pinwheel’s Switch Kit really puts that ethos into action. What we’d really like to drive is more awareness among financial institutions that this is available: it’s not just for the big banks. It’s something you can deploy with ease, and position yourself as your community’s main financial point of reference in perpetuity.
In keeping with that, I wanted to ask you: what are you most excited about with this partnership?
Kurtis: I love how this partnership allows smaller FIs to out-innovate even the largest national banks with unlimited resources. The number of banks who have gotten to market with a full account portability solution in onboarding can be counted on one hand. Bill management? Even fewer. Together we are empowering our mutual customers to leapfrog the status quo and lead the market in digital banking experiences.
Nikhil: How should our financial institutions be thinking about Pinwheel? What guidance should we give them to strategically implement this functionality to achieve their desired outcomes?
Kurtis: Deposit switching is already there, and I firmly believe that bill switching and bill management will be table stakes features 18 months from now. All Narmi clients should be taking advantage of the easy implementation of these features as soon as possible to grab a competitive edge.
Nikhil: And in the future, what should Narmi’s customers be looking for on the horizon with Pinwheel as deposit switch becomes more and more the standard?
Kurtis: Pinwheel is continuously analyzing friction points in the banking customer experience and will continue to innovate new products to increase activation and engagement rates. We are already close to launching a “Switch Kit 2.0,” with a more conversion optimized UX that helps banks capture even more sticky behaviors at onboarding. We will never stop obsessing about how to make onboarding more delightful for consumers, making it easier for banks to win and keep profitable customer relationships.
For more information on how to add Switch Kit to your onboarding experience, contact us.
