How St. Mary’s Bank Is Evolving Its Website from Information Hub to Personalized Digital Experience

Founded in 1908, St. Mary’s Bank has a unique place in American history as the nation’s first credit union. Yet while the institution continued to evolve its services, its website was becoming a barrier to progress. The bank’s legacy Kentico CMS was nearing end-of-life, limiting flexibility, and preventing the organization from delivering more advanced digital experiences.

Limited Resources, Growing Expectations

The challenge was amplified by the realities of a lean marketing team. Without dedicated in-house web developers, marketers often depended on external development resources for website updates, campaign launches and content changes. This created delays and made it difficult to respond quickly to business needs. The bank needed a CMS that would reduce developer dependency for routine work without sacrificing governance, security or compliance.

At the same time, St. Mary’s Bank needed to serve a diverse customer base spanning multiple generations. Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z all visit the same website but arrive with very different expectations, financial goals and product interests. The existing site functioned primarily as an information repository—where visitors had to search for answers themselves rather than being guided toward relevant products and services.

Operating in a highly regulated industry added another layer of complexity. Any new platform needed to provide strong governance, controlled publishing workflows and secure content management capabilities while supporting future growth.

To address these challenges, St. Mary’s Bank partnered with SilverTech and adopted Progress Sitefinity CMS as the foundation for a phased digital transformation strategy. Drawing on SilverTech’s deep experience in the banking and credit union sector, the organization implemented a strategy aligned with both customer experience goals and regulatory requirements. Rather than treating the project as a one-time website redesign, the team focused on building a platform that could evolve alongside the organization’s digital ambitions.

Empowering Marketing While Maintaining Control

One of the most immediate improvements came through the Sitefinity templated content management approach. Marketing teams gained the ability to create and update pages, launch campaigns and manage content independently without relying on developers for routine changes. Templates gave the team more control over day-to-day content updates while maintaining governance controls and reducing risk.

The bank also introduced personalization capabilities through Progress Sitefinity Insight. The initiative began with simple distinctions between known and unknown visitors before expanding into persona-based experiences. Today, St. Mary’s Bank delivers tailored content and offers based on customer behaviors, interests and audience segments within a governed digital experience.

To support these efforts, SilverTech integrated Sitefinity CMS with the bank's Snowflake data warehouse, enabling data-driven segmentation and personalization while maintaining strict privacy and security requirements. Structured content management, controlled publishing workflows and governance safeguards helped support compliance and oversight within the regulated banking environment.

Importantly, the organization selected a platform capable of supporting future growth, including expanded personalization, optimization and emerging AI-driven capabilities for evolving digital experience needs.