Altamaha Drives Future of Banking with Citrix

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.