Case Study: Southwest Heritage Bank streamlines compliance and merger integration with Abrigo BAM+

Southwest Heritage Bank optimizes compliance and merger process with Abrigo BAM+

Southwest Heritage Bank, a community bank headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona with under 10 branches and $1 billion in assets after merging Commerce Bank of Arizona and Bank 34 and expanding into New Mexico, faced the challenge of integrating two compliance programs and managing a surge in transaction-monitoring alerts during the merger. Both legacy institutions used Abrigo’s BAM+ platform and engaged Abrigo Advisory Services, but the combined institution needed to optimize systems and align scenarios to handle increased monitoring demands.

Working with Abrigo’s Advisory team, Southwest Heritage Bank centralized compliance into the BAM+ platform, fine-tuned transaction-monitoring scenarios, and streamlined workflows. Abrigo helped reduce alerts from nearly 500 immediately post-merger to about 350 per month within a few months, enabled consistent regulatory reporting during the blackout period, and delivered a scalable compliance solution that lets the small team manage investigations and reporting more efficiently.

Southwest Heritage Bank

Ryan Nuffer

Vice President and BSA Officer