NewtekOne and its bank subsidiary, Newtek Bank, hired Jennifer Merritt as chief operating officer of digital banking operations.

Merritt joined Newtek Bank with more than a decade of banking experience with specific focuses on digital banking and banking product development. Most recently, Merritt was senior vice president and strategic operations lead at Live Oak Bank, where she co-created a strategic operations team focused on improving operational efficiencies. In addition, she was a business leader and subject-matter expert for the building of an integrated digital online banking platform with digital account opening and online banking solutions and software. Merritt has also managed deposit operations, customer service initiatives and ensured regulatory compliance. Earlier in her career, Merritt held management and staff positions in both front-office and back-office operations at First Bank and Wells Fargo.

“We couldn’t be more pleased to announce the acquisition of Jennifer Merritt’s talents for the role of chief operating officer of digital banking operations at Newtek Bank,” Barry Sloane, chairman, president and CEO at Newtek, said. “We believe that with Jennifer’s leadership, the success that Newtek Bank has experienced raising deposits, primarily through consumer high-yield savings and time-deposit opportunities, will transform into more and lower-cost transactional depository accounts. During Jennifer’s long, successful career in banking, she has demonstrated that she can be instrumental in developing an online banking platform with digital account opening, and online banking solutions and software, using the same core operating system and software platforms we are using at Newtek Bank. We plan on continuing to grow the talent pool at Newtek Bank in order to provide our commercial banking clients with best-in-class service and through the Newtek advantage.

“As we have said, we believe that in 2024 we will continue to grow our commercial bank deposits from independent business owners, utilizing the advanced technology and transactional software that we have acquired and developed. This will enable us to begin to reduce our cost of funds and diversify our depository accounts into lower-cost transaction-oriented, commercial clientele. We strongly believe that our existing merchant service and payroll clients will be able to take advantage of services like instant funding for payment processing clients and a more integrated approach to payroll processing through the Newtek advantage by establishing a depository relationship. We look forward to discussing these strategic initiatives in greater detail on our upcoming conference calls and delivering metrics throughout 2024.”