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Case study
Peak Bank
A national digital bank built from an Idaho legacy. Now the blueprint for a European banking group’s US expansion.
Sector
Duration
Channels
Practices
Peak was created by BAWAG Group, one of Austria’s largest banking groups, as the digital expression of a legacy community bank it had acquired in Idaho. BAWAG had a US banking license, a deposit base, and a regulatory footprint. What it didn’t have was a US digital brand that could scale beyond Idaho and become the template for everything BAWAG wanted to build in America.
Peak had capital, banking infrastructure, and a parent that understood banking deeply. It was missing three things, all of which had to be built in months, not years.
No digital presence. No brand equity. No acquisition infrastructure; no funnel, no analytics, no media program, no content engine.
And it had to work the first time. Peak wasn’t a portfolio bet that could absorb a miss. It was BAWAG’s US digital strategy. If Peak didn’t perform, the expansion thesis didn’t either.
Strategy & Positioning
Digital banking had become a category of utilities. Full of accounts, thin on identity. To compete in a fast-maturing digital banking space, our team had to build a digital entrant with some brand weight.
Peak’s name pointed the way. Peak Bank is for people who are climbing.
And the messaging and creative strategy captivated an audience looking through a sea of sameness. The reference set was more REI and Yeti than Chase and Chime. And the climb was on!
Campaign creative, 2024–2025. Rates shown below are historical.
Brand & Identity
Peak’s brand was a documentary-meets-aspirational system built around real outdoor moments: runners on ridges, climbers at altitude, families in real environments. “Reach New Heights” isn’t a tagline pasted over generic imagery. It’s the frame of every photograph.
The system was built to be productive, not decorative. Instead of a 200-page guideline document, we shipped a social template design system that produces on-brand content across TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at the cadence those platforms demand.
Digital Product & Experience
Three digital principles guided our initial efforts: feel like the credible brand, convert like a fintech, report like a bank.
Most fintech sites pick one (a beautiful brand site or hard-working funnel). We built one that did both, with funnel architecture engineered into the page system rather than bolted on. Cross-domain analytics were architected from the start, so every step from a YouTube pre-roll view to a funded savings account could be measured as one continuous journey.
Growth & Performance
A digital bank without venture-scale paid social budget has to be smarter and more brand-led than the challengers before it. We built and continue to run a full-funnel program across paid search, Performance Max, programmatic display, connected TV, pre-roll, streaming audio, Meta, and Reddit, weighted toward the channels where this audience already spends attention.
Audience, bidding, and creative optimization in the programmatic program produced a 600% increase in conversions and a 179% increase in qualified leads. High-intent search (branded and competitor campaigns) now delivers thousands of primary conversions at a cost per conversion 20-30% lower than digital competitors, while awareness channels like CTV and Performance Max carry the top of the funnel.
deposit base the program supports
above benchmark CTR in Bend, OR
to outpace a 20-year legacy deposit base
programmatic conversions on lower spend
for BAWAG's US expansion
HIFI built Peak from a name and an opportunity into a national digital bank, and has run the brand and growth program ever since. They led the brand, the digital experience, and the growth engine end-to-end — and the model they built is what we're now scaling across our US strategy.
