Altamaha Drives Future of Banking with Citrix

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -  July 28, 2020 – The move toward digital banking has been on for years. But banking is a business of relationships, and to build and maintain them, institutions must still connect in personal ways. The COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t made this easy. But innovative institutions like Altamaha Bank & Trust  are using digital workspace solutions from Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) to meet its customers where they are and deliver the superior services they have come to expect.

“As a community bank, relationships are the key to our success,” says Shan Venable, Chief Technology Officer, Altamaha. “We know our customers and their families, and our employees must be equipped with the tools they need to engage them at a highly personal level.”

Enabling Work from Anywhere

In 2014, Venable set the wheels in motion on an aggressive plan to digitize Altamaha’s operations and mobilize its team. “Our employees meet customers when and where it is most convenient for them – in their homes, their place of business and even Little League fields – and they need to be able to access the banking apps and information they need to provide services in a secure and reliable manner,” he says.

Enter Citrix. With the help of Citrix Certified Technology Partner Conversant Group, Altamaha implemented Citrix® Virtual Apps and Desktops™ and Citrix ShareFile® alongside Citrix ADC™ and Citrix Endpoint Management™, creating a unified digital workspace through which it can deliver all the tools its employees need to work anywhere, anytime from any device.

Seeing the Future

While designed at the time to keep pace with shift toward digital banking, the move proved to be prophetic when COVID-19 hit and the bank was forced to close physical branches and equip employees to work from home.

“With Citrix, our team doesn’t have to be tethered to the old desktop work environment,” Venable says. “I can give them a mobile device and they can get to everything they need from wherever they are at and work as if they were in the branch.”

Delivering it Today

And according to Venable, this is enabling Altamaha to deliver the future of banking to its customers today.

“Our customers have made a lot of changes in the last 90 days as a result of COVID-19. They’ve learned how to bank without coming to the bank. And while we’ve re-opened our branches, we’ve noticed that traffic hasn’t come back because they have become more accepting of digital channels,” he says.

Being Flexible

But he adds that there will still be times when customers will want to sit down and do things face-to-face – like financial planning. “We want to let our customers bank when, where and how they want and Citrix gives us the platform to do this,” Venable says.

Take Citrix ShareFile. In the past, exchanging sensitive documents was a painful process that involved a password-protected portal which Venable says was a big pain point. “It was yet another set of credentials for customers to remember and difficult to use,” Venable recalls.

Keeping Things Simple

To eliminate it, Altamaha began using Citrix ShareFile as its primary platform for document access and exchange. “The nice thing about ShareFile is that it makes things so easy. We can send our customers a link and they can upload files by just dropping and dragging. And that’s been a big plus for us in making it easier for them to interact with us.”

Citrix builds the secure, digital workspace technology that helps businesses unlock human potential, improve employee experience and drive adaptable models of work to gain advantage. Click here to learn more the company’s solutions and the value they can provide.