Bravera Bank: a well-rounded community bank supported by Jack Henry
Headquartered in Dickinson,
North Dakota, Bravera Bank – previously
known as American Bank Center - has a history tracing back to the early 1900s. At
that time, the western part of North Dakota was homesteaded and Bravera’s
customers were farmers and ranchers. Over the years, the community bank grew
through strategic acquisitions in larger communities followed by organic
growth, expanding its footprint across North Dakota, Montana, and Minnesota,
and serving agricultural and retail customers, as well as small to medium-sized
businesses (SMBs). Today, Bravera Bank has 28 branches and employs more than
500 community members.
What makes Bravera unique is its three separate businesses: banking, wealth management, and insurance, all falling under Bravera Holdings Corp., bringing the company’s asset size to $3.1 billion. No other financial institution in their communities can offer such accessible breath of service, eliminating the need for customers to go elsewhere for wealth management and insurance services, and ultimately helping improve their communities’ financial health.
Bravera has been a Jack Henry client since the late 1990s, when the bank converted to Jack Henry scalable hosted core processing solution, SilverLake. David Ehlis, President and CEO at Bravera Holdings Corp., says, “Jack Henry’s open ecosystem and innovative technology has powered our bank through various stages in our growth, including multiple acquisitions. After every acquisition, we have noticed an immediate benefit to that client base because of Jack Henry’s technology, and have always received positive feedback, especially for digital services. We see Jack Henry as a true partner, which has led to a long-term, valuable relationship.”
Today, Jack Henry enables the bank to provide banking services through a common interface on Jack Henry’s open and flexible digital banking platform, Banno Digital Platform, with the long-term goal of having all three businesses available through one customer entry point. This strategy enables Bravera to be the access point for all things financial in their customers’ personal, professional, and business lives, and act as a company of advisors, tailoring services to customers’ individual needs. The bank also leverages Jack Henry’s digital account opening solution, Open Anywhere, which was Bravera’s second best performing account opening channel in 2023.
Jack Henry’s open integration to more than 950 third-party fintechs also fits the strategic direction of Bravera Bank. Ehlis continues, “The ability to plug and play to a niche solution that best fits the needs of our customers and integrate it seamlessly into our core is very important to us and progresses the community bank movement. We all operate in different environments and need different technologies to stay competitive. Even with the open environment that Jack Henry provides, we tend to gravitate towards their products when available, due to the relationship we have built, the support we know we will get, and the seamless integration.”
This year, Bravera is focused on investing in technology that will better serve their larger business customers and improve operational efficiency and flexibility, giving bankers more time to spend with their customers. To achieve these goals, the bank is implementing Jack Henry’s Treasury Management solution, focusing on payables, receivables, liquidity management and fraud prevention as well as expanding their payment channels to include FedNow and growing their usage of Jack Henry’s Cognos data analytics platform to identify operational efficiencies and product opportunities. In the long-term, the bank plans to continue to grow geographically through selective acquisitions in new areas and organic growth in existing communities. Jack Henry will continue to support the bank every step of the way, like they have done for more than 25 years.
About
Author:
Since 2014, Dave has served as
President and CEO of Bravera. Prior to that, he spent 26 years working in
several management and leadership roles in the U.S. Army and energy, banking
and agricultural industries. In addition to developing and growing the Bravera
footprint, Dave provides vision, direction and leadership for the business.
Dave is originally from New England, N.D. He values our Midwest culture and community and gives of his time and resources to many prominent organizations. He currently serves on the board for the Bismarck Mandan Chamber EDC Foundation. He is also a member of Humanities North Dakota, Bismarck Rotary Club and the Cathedral Parish. He is a trustee at the University of Mary. Dave is a partner of Dakota West Farms, a commercial grain farm in southwest North Dakota.
He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Military Academy and a Master of Business Administration degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. Dave and his family reside in Bismarck.