Jack Henry president leads 'omnichannel' push

Less than a year into the role, Jack Henry & Associates Inc. President David Foss is leading the financial software firm’s push toward ‘omnichannel’ technology for its roughly 11,300 bank and credit union customers.

Through the omnichannel delivery system, banks aspire to deliver the same experience no matter the Web platform or device the customer is using.

“The look, feel and experience should be the same,” said Foss, this morning’s guest for Springfield Business Journal’s 12 People You Need to Know live interview series.

For Jack Henry (Nasdaq: JKHY), the March 2014 purchase of Cedar Falls, Iowa-based tech firm Banno boosted its capabilities in the mobile arena.

“The Banno acquisition really leapfrogs us toward getting there,” said Foss, who regularly commutes to Jack Henry’s Monett headquarters from his home in Dallas. “All of us in our space, we’re all trying to get to that pot of gold with a true omnichannel deliverable.

“We’re making great progress, but it’s a a fairly long-term initiative, not only for Jack Henry but for all the companies that compete in our space.”

Banno also is helping Jack Henry deliver mobile solutions to customers, a hot market in the industry, according to Foss.

It’s all part of a rapidly changing banking industry, he said.

“Put everything on mobile. Put it on tablet for me. Let me go to my customers to do a loan using a tablet rather than having a customer come into the branch. Enable my consumer and my small business to do anything they want to do on the phone,” Foss said.

Since the Great Recession, financial institutions have come under heightened regulatory scrutiny, meaning increased demand for Jack Henry’s products that can help ease the burden.

“They’re looking for opportunities to outsource their solutions. Today, 95, 98 percent of what we sell is us hosting for our banks and credit unions. They’re always looking for ways to shed some of that responsibility,” Foss said. “If they have software running in-house, they have so much extra scrutiny that they go through with their regulators.”