Strategic Partnership to Advance Personalized Banking and Community Impact
Spiral announced a strategic collaboration with First Merchants Bank aimed at redefining how customers engage with saving, charitable giving, and digital banking. The initiative aligns with the bank’s long-standing mission to support the financial wellbeing of individuals, families, and businesses across Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. By integrating Spiral’s engagement-driven platform, the bank is positioning itself to deepen relationships, strengthen deposits, and expand its community impact through personalized financial experiences.
Strengthening Deposit Growth Through Customer Engagement
The collaboration centers on creating sustainable deposit growth through meaningful customer engagement rather than traditional promotional incentives. The platform encourages customers to build savings organically through everyday banking behavior, helping the institution increase low-cost deposits while delivering value-driven digital services. By embedding savings tools directly into daily financial activities, the partnership seeks to shift saving from a periodic task to a continuous habit that integrates seamlessly into customers’ lifestyles.
The approach emphasizes behavioral finance principles, encouraging customers to interact more frequently with their accounts and build long-term financial resilience. This strategy is designed to increase retention while helping customers feel more connected to their financial institution.
Addressing the Decline in Personal Savings
With the personal savings rate remaining below 5% in recent years, many households continue to face challenges in preparing for emergencies and long-term financial milestones. The partnership aims to address this issue by transforming savings into an engaging and automated experience. By embedding tools that encourage small, consistent contributions, the bank is helping customers overcome psychological barriers that often prevent consistent saving.
These tools aim to remove friction from the savings process and make financial progress feel achievable regardless of income level or financial experience. The focus is on empowering customers to make incremental improvements that accumulate into meaningful financial security over time.
Introduction of the Savings Center Experience
A central component of the initiative is the launch of a Savings Center designed to help customers build financial stability through automation and personalization. This experience includes features that allow customers to set personalized goals and monitor progress through intuitive digital dashboards.
The Savings Center supports a range of common financial goals including home purchases, business creation, vehicle ownership, travel planning, and emergency funds. Customers are guided through goal creation and can track their progress through visual indicators and milestone celebrations designed to reinforce positive financial habits.
Automatic Savings for Everyday Banking
Automatic Savings capabilities play a major role in the program by enabling customers to transfer funds into savings accounts based on personalized triggers and rules. These rules can be tied to income deposits, spending patterns, or recurring transactions, ensuring that saving becomes a seamless part of daily financial activity.
Automation helps eliminate the need for manual transfers and reduces the likelihood that customers will skip saving during busy or financially uncertain periods. Over time, this consistent approach builds financial momentum and encourages long-term discipline.
Gamification and Motivation Through Progress Tracking
Gamified experiences are incorporated to make saving more engaging and rewarding. Progress tracking tools provide visual feedback and milestone recognition that help maintain motivation. By celebrating achievements and highlighting progress, the platform transforms saving into a rewarding experience rather than a burdensome obligation.
This design encourages continued participation and reinforces the habit-forming nature of regular saving. Customers experience a sense of achievement as they move closer to their financial goals, which strengthens their relationship with the bank.
Turning Everyday Purchases Into Savings Opportunities
The partnership introduces round-up technology that converts everyday purchases into opportunities for saving and giving. Customers can automatically round up transactions to the nearest dollar and allocate the spare change toward savings goals or charitable contributions.
This feature leverages behavioral psychology by making saving effortless and nearly invisible, allowing customers to build savings without altering spending habits. Small contributions accumulate over time, demonstrating how minor adjustments can produce meaningful results.
Empowering Charitable Giving Through Digital Banking
A new Giving Center enables customers to donate directly from their banking accounts to charitable organizations and community initiatives. This feature allows customers to create personalized portfolios of causes and track the impact of their contributions over time.
By integrating charitable giving into everyday banking, the bank is fostering a deeper sense of connection between customers and their communities. This approach aligns financial services with social values, creating a more holistic banking experience.
Building Personalized Cause Portfolios
Customers can curate personalized portfolios of nonprofits and community initiatives that align with their values. The platform allows them to manage contributions, track impact, and receive donation summaries for tax reporting.
This feature simplifies the process of charitable giving and makes it more accessible to customers who may not have previously engaged in regular philanthropy. By lowering barriers to giving, the bank encourages broader participation in community support initiatives.
Driving Community Impact Through Digital Donations
The partnership enables the bank to expand its support of local nonprofits by driving digital donations and launching community-focused campaigns. The platform allows the bank to facilitate fundraising initiatives, donation matching programs, and targeted campaigns that benefit local organizations.
These initiatives strengthen the bank’s role as a community partner and help build long-term relationships with nonprofit organizations. The integration of giving into digital banking reinforces the institution’s commitment to social responsibility.
Attracting Nonprofit Organizations as Customers
The initiative is also designed to attract nonprofit organizations as banking clients by offering tools that support fundraising and donor engagement. By providing digital solutions that simplify donation management and reporting, the bank becomes a valuable partner for nonprofit operations.
This strategy expands the bank’s customer base while reinforcing its reputation as a community-focused financial institution.
Aligning with a Legacy of Community Support
For more than 130 years, the bank has emphasized its mission of helping individuals and businesses build stronger financial futures. The partnership builds on this legacy by introducing modern digital tools that bring community support and financial wellness into everyday banking.
Carrie Valek highlighted the significance of the collaboration, emphasizing the simplicity and effectiveness of the platform in helping customers grow savings while supporting their communities.
Enhancing Financial Wellness Across Diverse Communities
The collaboration is designed to support diverse communities by offering inclusive financial tools that address varying needs and goals. Personalized experiences allow customers to tailor their financial journey according to their unique circumstances.
By providing accessible tools and resources, the bank aims to reduce financial stress and promote long-term stability among its customer base.
Strengthening Customer Relationships Through Personalization
Personalization is at the core of the initiative, enabling the bank to deliver tailored experiences based on customer behavior and preferences. This approach fosters stronger relationships and encourages deeper engagement with digital banking services.
Customers benefit from relevant recommendations, customized savings strategies, and targeted community initiatives that align with their values.
Supporting Long-Term Customer Retention
By delivering meaningful digital experiences, the partnership aims to increase customer loyalty and retention. Engaged customers are more likely to maintain long-term relationships with their financial institution and expand their use of banking services.
This strategy benefits both customers and the institution by creating mutually reinforcing value.
Leveraging Technology for Seamless Integration
Spiral’s platform integrates seamlessly with leading digital banking providers and core banking systems, enabling efficient deployment and scalability. This turnkey approach allows the bank to introduce new capabilities without disrupting existing operations.
The integration ensures that customers experience a cohesive and intuitive digital banking environment.
Driving Innovation in Community Banking
The collaboration represents a broader shift toward innovation in community banking, where digital tools play a central role in enhancing customer experiences. By embracing technology-driven solutions, the bank positions itself as a forward-thinking institution capable of meeting evolving customer expectations.
Creating Measurable Impact for Communities
The platform provides tools for measuring the impact of charitable contributions and community initiatives. Customers and the bank can track outcomes and evaluate the effectiveness of campaigns and programs.
This transparency strengthens trust and encourages continued participation in community support efforts.
Enabling Fundraising and Donation Matching Campaigns
The partnership introduces capabilities for launching fundraising campaigns and donation matching initiatives that amplify community impact. These campaigns encourage customers to participate in collective efforts that support local organizations.
The bank can collaborate with nonprofits to design targeted initiatives that address community needs and priorities.
Expanding the Role of Digital Banking in Social Good
By embedding charitable giving and community engagement into digital banking, the collaboration expands the role of financial institutions in promoting social good. Customers gain the ability to align their financial activities with their personal values.
Executive Perspective on the Collaboration
Shawn Melamed emphasized the shared vision between the organizations, highlighting the potential to improve customers’ lives while strengthening communities and driving deposit growth.
Future Outlook and Strategic Vision
The partnership represents a long-term commitment to innovation, community support, and financial wellness. Both organizations anticipate continued growth in customer engagement, deposit expansion, and community impact as the platform evolves and adoption increases.
About Spiral
Headquartered in New York City, Spiral is an award-winning platform redefining how banks and credit unions grow deposits and retention through personalized banking experiences. Trusted by over 40 financial institutions nationwide, Spiral has saved millions for families and local communities, turning institutions into the primary choice for savings, cards, loans, and giving. With Spiral, financial institutions empower account holders to build savings automatically, achieve financial freedom, and support their communities through any banking account or debit card. Recognized as a Top 50 FinTech Company, Spiral makes it easy for financial institutions to drive local impact and empower millions of people to build better lives. Spiral is backed by Team8, Curql, ICBA, Euclidean Capital, Intuition Fund, Communitas Capital, Phoenix, Nidoco AB, MTVO, and more. To learn more, visit Spiral.us.
About First Merchants Bank
With approximately $21 billion in assets1, First Merchants Corporation (NASDAQ: FRME) is a registered bank holding company offering a full line of commercial and consumer banking services and wealth management services through First Merchants Bank and First Merchants Private Wealth Advisors in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. With more than 130 years of enhancing the financial wellness of the diverse communities it serves, First Merchants makes meaningful contributions through employee empowerment, philanthropy, charitable giving, financial wellness, and community home and business lending. The company has been honored for its attentive and knowledgeable service and culture by Forbes, Time Magazine, American Banker, and S&P Global Intelligence “Best Banks” awards. First Merchants attributes this recognition to a mission-driven team that is passionate about “helping you prosper” through attentiveness as its genuine and unique approach to customer service. To see how First Merchants is making a difference, go to https://www.firstmerchants.com/.
1 Includes the assets from the acquisition of First Saving Financial Group on February 1, 2026.
