FI Works, the Little Rock, Arkansas relationship intelligence and engagement platform for community banks and credit unions, launched FI Works Signals on 10 November 2026, a machine learning feature that flags households likely to add a product, adopt checking or digital services, or leave the institution. Because FI Works Signals runs inside the same platform as FI Works’ marketing automation and CRM, staff can move from a prediction to a campaign or follow-up task without exporting lists.

Fintechbits found no earlier coverage of FI Works products in its archive, and the release gives no accuracy figures. FI Works and Baker Hill announced a partnership in August 2023 that opened the FI Works customer data platform to Baker Hill’s more than 400 bank and credit union clients.

What FI Works Signals does

According to the FI Works release, Signals analyses an institution’s integrated data, not transactions alone, to find chances to grow loans and deposits, increase service use and keep valuable relationships. Predictive scores help staff prioritise outreach, and predicted balances and profitability estimate what each opportunity is worth.

FI Works argues that tools relying mainly on transaction data spot problems too late. By the time a payment to another lender shows up, the customer has often already moved the business. Signals looks for earlier warning signs so that an attrition flag can prompt a conversation before money leaves.

Connected reporting lets teams track outcomes and refine their approach. FI Works says no one needs to be a data scientist to use the results.

Keith Henkel, founder and chief executive of FI Works, said institutions that bought signal tools in the past found the results felt like “a so what” because most pointed to opportunities already lost. “Finding the opportunity is only half the job,” he said.

Deposit retention at small banks

Community banks and credit unions compete for deposits with high-yield online accounts, brokerages and larger banks with bigger marketing budgets. Losing a primary checking relationship usually means losing the loans, cards and fees that come with it, so even small improvements in retention are valuable.

Many small institutions hold rich data across their core, digital banking and lending systems but lack the analysts to use it. That gap is what vendors like FI Works, and larger CRM providers, are trying to fill. The pressure rose when deposit costs climbed, because a lost low-cost checking account often has to be replaced with a more expensive certificate of deposit or wholesale funding.

Predicted profitability is a useful touch. A retention campaign aimed at every at-risk household wastes effort on relationships that lose money; ranking them by value lets a small team spend its time where it counts.

Fintechbits analysis

Why FI Works Signals Lives or Dies on Action

FI Works Signals is right to focus on the step after the prediction. The common failure of analytics in banking is a dashboard that nobody acts on. Putting the score inside the same tool that runs campaigns and assigns tasks to branch staff removes one excuse.

The claim to be “the industry’s solution” should be treated as marketing. Predicting attrition is a well-studied problem, and core providers and CRM vendors offer similar features. The question for buyers is accuracy on their own data, and the release gives no measure of it, such as how many flagged households actually left or added products.

Data access is the practical hurdle. A model that uses integrated data needs clean feeds from the core and other systems, which is often where community bank projects stall. Fintechbits has covered how smaller institutions handle data-heavy tasks in its piece on AI in AML compliance and in Glia’s business banking tools.

Frequently asked questions

What is FI Works Signals?

FI Works Signals is a machine learning feature launched on 10 November 2026 that predicts which community bank or credit union households are likely to add products, adopt services or leave.

How is Signals different from transaction-based tools?

FI Works says Signals analyses an institution’s integrated data rather than transactions alone, so it can spot early warning signs before a customer moves money elsewhere.

Do banks need data scientists to use Signals?

FI Works says no. The scores, predicted balances and profitability estimates are built into its marketing automation and CRM, so staff can act on them directly.

What to Watch Next

The proof point to watch is a named institution reporting retention or cross-sell results from FI Works Signals, such as a fall in closed checking accounts or a rise in products per household. Without numbers like that, buyers will struggle to compare it with rival tools.