International paytech firm First Data and a bank in North Carolina, Live Oak, have partnered to form a new digital banking joint venture (JV) called Apiture.
The start-up aims to help community banks compete with the industry heavyweights like Bank of America. Live Oak’s president, Neil Underwood, comments that the top five financial institutions in the US “have teams of hundreds that are on their development sites”. Apiture, he says, “will allow other banks to acquire industry-leading technology to better compete with those large companies”.
