Three years ago, Fiserv announced Jeffrey Yabuki would take over as the company's new president and CEO. Since its founding in 1984, the company has relied on acquisitions for growth, operating as many as 77 distinct business units. Leveraging executive experience at H&R Block and American Express, the 48-year-old Yabuki is integrating the business units and finding new synergies in an effort the company calls "Fiserv 2.0."

Since he moved into the president's office at the company's suburban Milwaukee headquarters on Dec. 1, 2005, Yabuki has focused on differentiating his company from the other major technology providers to the banking industry. The differentiating strategy is the driver behind Fiserv 2.0.

Information Technology, Inc., based in Lincoln, Neb., and Precision Computer Systems of Sioux Falls, S.D., are two Fiserv business units well known to bankers throughout the Upper Midwest. Just as those two companies have integrated operations in the last few years, Yabuki wants to unify the products, services and the expertise of its 23,000 employees across all its businesses. He talks about going to the market with a "singular approach" and developing the company's "one-enterprise thinking."

A year ago, Fiserv acquired CheckFree Corporation for $4.4 billion in a deal that makes Fiserv one of the world's leading processors of electronic payments. More than 3,000 banks use CheckFree's internet-based electronic billing and payment services. Fiserv, which has more than 18,000 clients around the world, is integrating its core processing capability with its electronic bill service to deliver new kinds of data to clients.

In October, the company won "Best of Show" recognition for its new CheckFree Online Advantage product, which it debuted at the Finovate 2008 conference in New York. The product was formally launched at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference in Orlando last month.

Online Advantage is an online banking platform that integrates banking, bill pay, personal money management and other services. Fiserv says the service will help financial institutions develop "deeper, personalized relationships through a rich, integrated user experience."

"This product is a highly integrated version of internet banking and electronic bill payment and presentment, which allows our clients to better serve their end customer," Yabuki said in a conference call with stock analysts last summer.

In an interview with NortkWestern Financial Review last August, Yabuki explained that the new service will help banks identify opportunities for marketing products to individuals. By tracking online banking activity, the bank will be able to determine products appropriate for particular customers.

"No one today integrates all of the data that exists in the core processing systems - the demand deposit information, debit processing, online bill pay and all of the other sources. But if a client is using a full suite of Fiserv products, that institution has the opportunity to know what am I using my debit card for, what I am using my credit card for, who I am paying my checks to, what I am doing electronically, how old my children are, and who I am paying to do my taxes. There are all kinds of data that exist. If we could help those institutions to rationalize and move though that data, how much more powerful could they be?"

Yabuki explained that other industries are already implementing similar technology. "If I go to Amazon. com, they know every keystroke; they know everything I do. And when I go back there they say, 'hey Jeff, we saw that you bought a book on leadership, here are three new titles.' My bank doesn't do anything like that. If I am paying a credit card for another financial institution, why doesn't my bank say, 'we can make you a better offer.'? I'd like that." Yabuki wants to help banks deliver that Amazon experience to their customers.

The extent to which banks are able to integrate customer data will determine their success, Yabuki said. Community banks generally have close relationships with their customers; Yabuki urged bankers to go deeper on those relationships. "A banker needs to know what a customer is doing through the branch, through digital channels, through the call center," he said. "They need to take that data and supplement it with qualitative insights that come from the people in those banks. This is how you can get to know customers in a deeper way."