Three community banks join hands with Tulsa’s iDENTIFY to eliminate data silos and build cloud-ready financial ecosystems

Tulsa-based data engineering firm iDENTIFY, a Snowflake Select Certified Partner, has signed InBank, Academy Bank, and Core Bank as its newest clients to unify fragmented financial data systems. The three community banks selected iDENTIFY in the second quarter of 2025 to consolidate isolated data silos, migrate to secure cloud platforms, and improve real-time decision-making for banking operations. The collaboration, which underscores the growing need for agile data ecosystems in regional banking, was publicly confirmed by iDENTIFY’s President Lee Easton, who highlighted the firm’s focus on building reliable, accessible data pipelines for financial institutions.

Why are InBank, Academy Bank, and Core Bank investing in cloud-ready data unification with iDENTIFY in 2025?

The three banks have historically relied on legacy core banking systems and scattered internal data repositories, a challenge shared across regional financial institutions in the United States. Over the past decade, data silos have slowed lending decisions, compliance reporting, and personalized service delivery in community banking. Institutional observers note that the pressure to modernize data infrastructure intensified after the pandemic, which accelerated the adoption of digital-first financial services.

InBank, headquartered in Denver’s River North district, focuses on private, commercial, and entrepreneur-focused banking, and has been aggressively expanding in the Rocky Mountain region. Academy Bank, with $2.9 billion in assets across Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Arkansas, and Missouri, has seen rising demand for treasury management and mortgage services, increasing the complexity of its data pipelines. Core Bank, a family-owned institution serving Omaha, Kansas City, and Mesa, Arizona, is expanding construction loan and wealth management services, requiring integrated real-time dashboards for operational visibility. By onboarding iDENTIFY, all three institutions aim to replace fragmented manual reporting workflows with cloud-based, automated pipelines, allowing strategic decisions to be made mid-cycle rather than post-period.

How does iDENTIFY’s technology help banks overcome data silos and improve strategic decision-making?

iDENTIFY specializes in migrating data from disparate on-premise systems into cloud environments such as Snowflake, building secure pipelines for transaction monitoring, compliance, and predictive analytics. The Tulsa-based data engineering firm designs tailored reporting dashboards and builds integrations between systems like Lithic for card issuing and Unit21 for financial crime monitoring.

Pratt Lewis, Chief Information Officer of InBank, explained that fragmented data silos previously delayed key decisions, but iDENTIFY’s cloud roadmap now enables smarter, faster decision-making for customers. Lindsay Borgeson, President of Partner Banking at Core Bank, emphasized that the new data centralization initiative would allow real-time strategic fine-tuning, replacing traditional end-of-quarter post-mortems.

Industry observers suggest that iDENTIFY’s methodology—reducing manual touchpoints, consolidating isolated data streams, and providing secure, cross-departmental data visibility—directly aligns with community banks’ need to deliver personalized, high-touch services while scaling digital operations.

Why has Tulsa become a strategic hub for fintech data engineering and how does it support iDENTIFY’s growth?

Tulsa’s emergence as a regional fintech and tech-engineering hub has attracted attention from national banking and data infrastructure players. The city’s designation as part of the U.S. Tech Hub initiative, recognized in Fast Company’s 2025 World Changing Ideas Awards, has boosted its reputation as a growth center for financial technology.

Lee Easton highlighted that Tulsa’s proximity to a nationwide network of community banks provides a competitive edge, enabling iDENTIFY to maintain close ties to its target market while benefiting from a skilled engineering workforce. Analysts indicate that being positioned within a collaborative tech ecosystem helps iDENTIFY offer cost-efficient, scalable services to banks seeking to modernize without overhauling entire IT architectures.

What institutional sentiment surrounds community banks’ shift toward data ecosystem modernization?

Institutional investors and banking technology consultants broadly view data ecosystem modernization as a critical step for regional banks to remain competitive. With customer expectations shifting toward real-time decision-making, faster loan approvals, and personalized financial services, analysts believe that data unification can directly improve net interest margins and reduce compliance costs.

Community banks historically prioritized localized, relationship-based service over large-scale technology investments. However, in 2025, market pressures from digitally native challenger banks and evolving regulatory requirements are pushing even relationship-focused banks to invest in robust data infrastructure. Investors interpret partnerships like the one with iDENTIFY as a signal of prudent, incremental modernization rather than risky, wholesale technology overhauls.

What is the future outlook for iDENTIFY and its partner banks in scaling data-driven financial operations?

The future outlook for iDENTIFY appears promising, with analysts anticipating broader adoption of its cloud migration and reporting solutions among mid-sized banks. Industry watchers expect the Tulsa-based data engineering firm to expand its partnerships to other regional and community banks across the Midwest and Southwest over the next 12 to 18 months.

For InBank, Academy Bank, and Core Bank, the successful implementation of centralized, cloud-ready data systems could enable advanced analytics, real-time fraud detection, and automated compliance, aligning them more closely with larger commercial banks’ digital capabilities. Analysts project that over time, the shift toward unified data ecosystems could help these banks diversify revenue streams, enhance customer retention, and position themselves as digitally resilient players in an increasingly competitive market.