Case Study: How First Federal Gained a True Partner for FX Wires

First Federal, a community bank in Oregon, moved its international wires to Acceleron and now resolves FX wire exceptions the same day, with dedicated support and automated pre-validations.

Challenge: No transparency, no one to call

First Federal's wire workflow was straight forward. Front line staff entered wires and the back office reviewed and released them. The problem was when something went wrong, the bank had no one to reach at the vendor in real time, and wires did not wait. Emails to the previous vendor could take 2 - 10 days, or even a month to get an answer.

FX wires also failed regularly, with roughly one in ten FX wires, and at times as many as one in eight, came back with an exception to clear, typically because a destination country required information that was not provided up front. Front line staff knew the odds and had little reason to promote the service.

Pricing was just as unclear. The team that manages international and FX wire fees was not part of the original implementation, so no one at the bank fully understood how the spread worked.

Solution: True partner, not just a vendor

For a bank in the middle of modernizing its technology, the deciding factor was the relationship. "When we were in talks with Acceleron, it was really clear that this was going to be a true partnership,” said Jordan Herron, VP Deposit Operations Manager at First Federal. “It wasn't just, we got you to sign the contract and now you're trapped. It was, we're going to work together on this."

First Federal also valued the flexibility of Acceleron’s pre-integration with Payments Exchange, which meant working within a system that they already used. All it took to get started was selecting Acceleron from a drop-down menu, and there was minimal technical lift.

The bank also was able to keep its previous provider for inbound wires and redundancy while it moved outbound wires to Acceleron.

Implementation: Quick and low tech lift

First Federal set the pace. Once implementation began it took about a month and a half, though Herron said it could have been done in a couple of weeks. The pre-work was a few meetings with Acceleron and the bank's core processing partner, and connection testing took one afternoon. The bank's first FX wire went out about a week and a half later, and it has had no issues since.

Results: Fewer errors, same day support

The early signal is clear. Acceleron’s automated validations on wire fields catch mistakes before the wires are sent out, which reduces errors significantly. The one exception the bank has seen was fixed in hours, not days, which avoids the rate changes and timing confusion that come with a next day fix.

"We have direct contact, and we can get an answer the same day. It's just the confidence that if we do hit a hiccup in the road, we know that we have support and help from our partnership." 

Jordan Herron, VP Deposit Operations Manager, First Federal

The back office team has noticed too. Jordan says they prefer working with Acceleron, in part because Acceleron is also watching transactions and proactively flagging wires in the queue before the daily cutoff time.

Next: Incoming wires

Fewer errors give First Federal's sales team a product they can be proud of. Jordan expects that confidence to open the door to new revenue and to businesses with a heavy focus on FX wires. The bank is also looking forward to moving inbound wires to Acceleron, and keeping its previous provider as a contingent option. Longer term, First Federal plans to explore online wires for customers once its business banking upgrade is complete.

"As a community bank, our customers depend on us to be able to send foreign exchange wires without delay and without issue," Herron said. "Having Acceleron acting as a true partner to us has already shown its value in having quick response time and a team who's ready to help us get the wire across the finish line. We highly recommend Acceleron to any bank that is looking for better vendor communication and a true partner in foreign exchange wires." 

Acceleron is a modern correspondent banking platform that empowers community banks and credit unions to automate international wire transfers, capture non-interest income, and compete more effectively with big banks. With a foreign exchange (FX) marketplace and currency conversion engine, Acceleron’s API-first infrastructure helps institutions turn cross-border payment flows into efficient, revenue-generating opportunities. Serving over 200 financial institutions and facilitating more than $1 billion in international payments annually, our correspondent banking services and international payment automation solutions are pre-integrated seamlessly with Fiserv Payments Exchange, Aptys, and other leading payments platforms.