Suncoast CU Creates a Better Member Payment Experience
The credit union has a partnership with Payrailz to create engaging and secure payment experiences for members.
Suncoast Credit Union, the largest Florida credit union, the ninth largest in the U.S. based on membership (785,000), and the nation’s 12th largest based on assets, selected Glastonbury, Conn.-based Payrailz, which offers intelligent, engaging and secure payment experiences to financial institutions.
Through this relationship, Suncoast, which operates 65 full-service branches, will have access to Payrailz’ technology, including consumer and business bill pay, bill negotiation services, and peer-to-peer and account-to-account money transfer services.
“We prioritize adding value to our members through enhanced services, particularly in ways that simplify their lives by improving their user experience,” Ted Hassenfelt, CIO at Suncoast Credit Union, said. “Partnering with Payrailz fits with our digital strategy to provide the best service to our more than 200,000 electronic bill payments each month.”
Powering Payrailz solutions is an artificial intelligence engine, a robust software developer’s kit and an adaptable user interface/user experience that allows financial institutions, like Suncoast, to deliver smarter payment experiences through online and mobile channels, voice-enabled devices, interactive messaging and payment bots.
Although Suncoast has an in-house innovation department, which focuses on mobile and online banking development, it still sought to partner with Payrailz to obtain specialized expertise to help chart its payment experience roadmap. This allows Suncoast to offer members a full range of payments services using Payrailz’ technology.
Hassenfelt indicated Suncoast right now has the standard bill pay and A2A options. “The digital experience attracted us to Payrailz, but the initiative was we needed to do something different for our members in the digital payment space.”
Fran Duggan, CEO of Payrailz, said, “There whole team over there, has very progressive ideas and it just fit perfectly. “Suncoast Credit Union fully embraces the current and future needs of its members, particularly in today’s “do it for me” culture, which prioritizes ease of use and the need for more sophisticated and predictive payment solutions to simplify their daily lives.”
Duggan also explained Payrailz wants to provide credit unions with the ability to pay their members’ bills for them and set up the payments they need. “And we’re doing that based on payments they’re already making.” The Payrailz CEO pointed out credit unions have a wealth of data about what their consumers do: who they pay, when they pay, how often they pay. “Why not leverage what members are doing, when they’re interacting online. This is where you leverage all that AI stuff and put it to use.”
Read more about Suncoast Credit Union’s digital payment plans in the October 17 issue of CU Times.