Integrating with Narmi

Narmi’s open platform is designed to integrate seamlessly with your existing core banking system. Our openness also makes it easy for third parties and other partners to integrate with us. This article describes our current core integrations, as well as our integrations with contracted third-party vendors and AppXchange partners.

In this article:

• Integrations Overview
• About Core Banking Systems
• About Third Party Vendors
• About AppXChange Partners
• About NAF Apps

Integrations Overview

Implementing Narmi products and features means integrating with our customers in two ways: 

• Connecting the Narmi platform to financial institutions' core banking system
• Connecting contracted third-party vendor services to the Narmi platform

Additionally, the financial institution, a development agency hired by the financial institution, and/or third-party vendors may integrate into the Narmi platform via the following methods:

• Using the Narmi Application Framework (NAF) to build their own custom experiences in the Digital Banking product. Go to Narmi Application Framework (NAF) to learn more.
• Using Narmi Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to create, read, update or delete data as well as to subscribe to events. Go to our developer Quick Start Guide to learn more about our APIs.
• Using the Narmi Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) interface to connect Narmi to the core banking system and/or other upstream systems. Go to Enterprise Service Bus to learn more.

For assistance with any of the integrations mentioned in this article, please contact support@narmi.com.

About Core Banking Systems

A core banking system is a back-end system of record that processes daily banking transactions and posts updates to accounts and other financial records. Core banking systems typically include deposit, loan, and credit processing capabilities, which interface to general ledger systems and reporting tools. Each core is slightly different in how it's structured, and how it requires other systems to communicate with it. We build custom integrations (a "shared language") with each core so that the cores can then communicate with our products—user actions in the Narmi platform are executed, and any changes from the core are displayed. We manage the end user experience for users interacting with the account and the financial institution. By acting as an abstraction layer on top of the core, we control the way users experience banking, replacing legacy experiences with modern, elegant ones.

Cores can be user-based, account-based, or a hybrid, which determines how the core's data is organized.

• User-based – A person has relationships to accounts, so information is associated to a person with an account. For example, Integrated Banking System (IBS) is a user-based core banking system owned by FIS.
• Account-based – An account is equivalent to a membership; information is associated with an account, instead of a person. For example, Symitar is an account-based core banking system owned by Jack Henry.

Narmi's integration layer standardizes how information is processed for all core types. Core type impacts the data type needed in conversion files for existing users.

Cores can be hosted onsite at the financial institution, offsite at the core provider, or with a third-party vendor. Location determines who needs to give Narmi connectivity.

Core Banking System Integration

There are three methods to connect to a core:

• Direct connection via public internet (optionally restricted to Narmi's IP addresses)
• Direct connection via virtual private network (VPN)
• Connection via Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)—such as ModusBox or Mulesoft—that maps Narmi to the core banking system. We are not responsible for this integration and instead define a specification for the financial institution or ESB vendor to implement. For more information, go to Enterprise Service Bus.

During implementation, we will work closely to connect to two instances of your financial institution’s core banking system—a test core and a production core. Once we establish a connection to the core, we gather additional configuration information to complete the implementation. 

About Third-party Vendors

Narmi relies on third-party vendors to assist in the execution of banking features and extend capabilities beyond banking. For example, we do not physically print checks for a customer. We connect to a check ordering vendor who creates and prints checks for the financial institution. 

There are three types of third-party vendors:

• Standard with Narmi – Required vendors used by all customers with a specific product. For example, Alloy is used by all our Account Opening customers.
• Optional – Vendors based on the financial institution's banking feature selection. For example, Anytown Bank might want to provide remote deposit capture to their users and chose Ensenta over Digiliti.
• Extensible – Non-banking feature vendors that are integrated via AppXchange, NAF Apps, or other custom functionality using Narmi APIs. Some examples are embedding a monthly bill pay application or passing account opening data via a loan originator.

Third-party Vendor Integration

We can connect the third parties using one of three ways:

• API – Narmi engineering implements the backend interface as documented by the third party, as well as the frontend interface.
• Single Sign-on (SSO) – An authentication method that allows the user to securely access a third-party site without having to sign in again. Narmi engineering implements the SSO specification as documented by the third party.
• Narmi Application Framework (NAF) – The third party, the financial institution, or a development agency is responsible for the integration. This integration may involve our AppXchange partners, using our NAF Apps feature, or other custom functionality using Narmi APIs. For more information, go to Narmi Application Framework (NAF).

Our Standard and Optional Third-party Vendors

We use the following third-party vendors as part of our Account Opening and Digital Banking experiences.

Alloy

Alloy is a global identity decisioning platform that helps financial institutions and FinTech companies automate their decisions, approve more good customers, and prevent fraud. Alloy is required to complete the financial institutions' Know Your Customer (KYC), Know Your Business (KYB) through Middesk, Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), and anti-money laundering (AML) processes in our Account Opening product. For more information, go to About Identity Decisioning.

Authorize.net

Authorize.net is a payment gateway service provider, allowing merchants to accept credit card and electronic payments through their website and over an IP connection. We connect to Authorize.net for funding during account opening and integration with this vendor is required for our Account Opening product. For more information, go to About Funding.

Elavon

Elavon is a merchant account provider that we use for card funding during account opening. Elavon processes and approves the transaction, handles the transfer of funds from the purchaser, and deposits the funds to the financial institution. Elavon is tightly integrated with Authorize.net and required for our Account Opening product. For more information, go to About Funding.

Ensenta

Ensenta is owned by Jack Henry and provides cloud-based, real-time payment and deposit solutions for web and mobile. We leverage Ensenta for remote deposit capture (RDC) risk review and related deposit monitoring alerts functionality. Ensenta is optional, however, this integration is recommended for financial institutions that use our Digital Banking product and want to offer RDC to their customers. Please contact your Narmi General Manager to start integration.

Intuit

Intuit provides several products focused on assisting individuals and small businesses with their financial management and compliance needs. For our Business Digital Banking product, we support optional Intuit connection types that allow users to manually or automatically update transaction information in Intuit products. Please contact your Narmi General Manager to start integration.

iPay

iPay Solutions is owned by Jack Henry and provides online consumer and business bill pay, as well as other payment solutions. Bill pay is a service that allows customers to pay bills (rent, mortgage, phone, utilities etc.) through the web or mobile application, without having to write and mail physical checks. The service makes it easier to organize bills, save time, and avoid late fees. iPay is an optional API-based payment experience, however, integration with this vendor is currently required for institutions that use our Digital Banking product and want to offer bill pay to their customers.

Middesk

Middesk is a business identity platform that helps companies verify and underwrite their customers and automate business verification. Middesk is required for KYB (via Alloy) in our Account Opening product. For more information, go to About Identity Decisioning.

Mitek MiSnap

Mitek MiSnap is a patented mobile-capture solution that enables an intuitive user experience and instant capture of quality images. Mitek MiSnap is required for remote deposit capture (RDC) technology in our Digital Banking mobile app and captures a still image of the front and back of the checks that users deposit.

MX

MX helps financial institutions and FinTech companies quickly and easily collect, enhance, analyze, present, and act on their financial data. MX is used in the backend of Narmi as our personal financial management platform as well as data enhancement platform. 

Twilio

Twilio is a cloud communication platform as a service (CPaaS) that provides APIs for making and receiving phone calls, sending and receiving text messages, and performing other communication functions. We use Twilio for our two-factor authentication (2FA) communications. When a user adds a phone number as a 2FA device, Twilio sends a text for mobile numbers and makes a voice call for landline numbers. For more information on 2FA in our products, go to Two-Factor Authentication. For information on how to see your users’ past notifications, go to Notification History.

Vouched

Vouched provides identity capture solutions to verify new customers for KYC. Vouched fully verifies the identity of users by leveraging artificial intelligence and performs identity checks against multiple points of data to build a data profile that compliments the Visual ID check itself, making it easier for financial institutions to detect and uncover fraud. In addition to visual identification and data verification, Vouched helps customers make more informed identity decisions by validating customer identification in the state DMV registry in real-time. Vouched is optional and you can contact your Narmi General Manager to start integration.

Zelle

Zelle is a payments network and service that allows users to rapidly move money from one US bank account to another. While Zelle can be enabled across a variety of core banking systems, we currently support Zelle via Jack Henry Associates (JHA) PayCenter, which only works with the major Jack Henry core banking systems: SilverLake, Symitar Episys, CIF 20/20, or Core Director. If you wish to enable Zelle via JHA PayCenter, please reach out to your JHA representative. For more information, go to Transfers - Zelle.

About AppXchange Partners

AppXchange partners are third-party vendors who have already integrated into the Narmi Application Framework and Narmi APIs, so no code or development is needed by financial institutions in order to provide customers with solutions from these partners. Financial institutions receive all the benefits of AppXchange automatically when they adopt our Digital Banking product, becoming a revenue-generating one-stop-shop for their users' financial needs.

Some key benefits of the AppXchange are:

• Functionality can be added to digital platforms with zero code or development needed by the financial institutions. 
• In some cases, the AppXchange partners also offer the opportunity for the financial institution to earn revenue from the functionality they provide.
• Increased revenue for financial institutions (often at 100% margin), thereby impacting key metrics such as ROA, ROE and capital ratios
• Create impact on the industry: With Narmi’s AppXchange, Radius Bank has become an innovator in the banking industry, awarded 2020’s #1 Online Bank by Bankrate.

Our AppXchange Partners

Your institution can provide the following AppXchange services to your customers or members:

• Billshark negotiates recurring monthly bills such as Cable TV, Internet, Wireless, and Security. Billshark is available only for mobile apps.
• Lemonade is an American property and casualty insurance company offering renters and home insurance policies. Lemonade is available only for mobile apps.
• Booking.com is an online travel agency providing travel and accommodation services.
• Ladder is a digital term life insurance provider that offers easy online sign up and adjustable policies.
• Credible is a loan marketplace that allows users to compare top lenders and find low rates.
• Harvest provides automated goals-based savings and wealth solutions for banks and credit unions.

AppXchange integrations are managed through our Admin Platform. To get started, contact support@narmi.com and they will turn on your access to manage these integrations.

About NAF Apps

NAF Apps is our self-service functionality designed to help you easily embed applications into the Digital Banking experience. NAF Apps allows you to add, remove, or update your own embedded applications using our Admin Platform, without the need for Narmi support. There are multiple levels of permissions available, so your financial institution can grant staff users the appropriate level of access to add, edit, or delete applications.

For step-by-step instructions on setup and management of NAF Apps within the Admin Platform, go to NAF Apps.

This video provides an overview of how NAF Apps are easily configured.

Video: NAF Self-Service Applications Walkthrough

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