Suresh Ramamurthi, founder and chief executive officer of Yantra Financial Technologies, a financial technology firm specializing in designing, developing and managing electronic payment systems, was named the 2015 “Innovator of the Year” by American Banker, following his development and implementation of the first real-time payments platform for Weir, Kan.-based CBW Bank, where Ramamurthi also serves as chairman and chief technology officer.

American Banker’s annual “Innovator of the Year” award honors professionals who embrace new technology and execute disruptive business models for the advancement of the financial services industry. Past winners include: Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and the inventor of the mobile payments device, Square; and Brett King, chief executive officer of Moven. This award follows other recent accolades for Ramamurthi, including the 2015 Payments Innovation Award by Your Electronic Payments Core of Knowledge (EPCOR). Ramamurthi was also named in Bank Innovation’s 2015 Innovators to Watch, alongside professionals like Jennifer Bailey of Apple Pay and Ajay Banga, chief executive officer of MasterCard. Additionally, Ramamurthi was recognized by Bank Technology News for leading one of the Top 10 Community Bank IT Projects, attesting to his dedication in modernizing the payments process.

“Suresh is powering one of the only dedicated FinTech banks in the US, and one of the first in the world,” said Brett King, chief executive officer of Moven. “Working with Suresh, it was clear from the start that while he respected the constraints of the US regulated banking environment, he wasn't going to be limited in his thinking by those constraints. Moven couldn't have pioneered mobile-first banking without Suresh and his team at CBW.”

“Ramamurthi has transformed a 123-year-old institution, with one branch in a dusty town with 661 residents, into a seedbed for disruptive financial technology – not to mention a wildly profitable generator of fee income,” writes Marc Hochstein, editor in chief of American Banker, in his recent article. “From his base in Weir, he’s acquired business clientele through word of mouth. These customers are largely fintech startups like Moven and, early on, Simple, that have used the renamed CBW Bank’s charter to host accounts for consumers.”

CBW Bank works with Yantra to offer the ONECard and BlastPay solutions. ONECard is a payment tool to provide customers access to a safe and convenient alternative to traditional bank accounts. The solution gives banks, program managers and corporate clients’ access to a powerful and flexible platform designed to support a wide range of product categories and use cases, such as direct deposit, money transfers and payroll. BlastPay is an FDIC insured business bank account that gives users complete control over the corporate payments process. This solution will be available early 2016.

“Today’s society is increasingly mobile and an entire generation of consumers has grown up on instant search results, so people are baffled by the painfully slow payments process,” said Ramamurthi. “By tackling the foundational issues that obstruct faster, more secure payments, we have been able to introduce real-time payments and this has given us visibility to new use cases and corresponding solutions to vertical specific problems.”

To read the full article, please visit American Banker’s website.

About CBW Bank

CBW Bank was founded in 1892 in Weir, Kan. In 2009, it was acquired by its current management team. With rapidly evolving technologies and regulations, CBW Bank anticipates, in conjunction with its partners, developing and launching products and services that leverage these changes and innovations to serve its customers better. For more information, visit www.cbwbank.com.

About Yantra Financial Technologies

Founded in 2012, Topeka, Kan.–based Yantra Financial Technologies is a financial technology firm specializing in designing, developing and managing electronic payment systems, and focuses on creating secure contextual and conditional ways of moving money. The company provides consumers and businesses around the globe with innovative ways of sending and receiving payments, with current and future technology offerings including international money remittance, card processing and healthcare payments. For more information, visit www.yftinc.com.