Summer Brings Fintech Advances & New CU Solutions

A rundown of some recent credit union financial technology announcements focuses on core platform changes, a strategic innovation group, an automated lending solution and a collaborative analytics ecosystem.

Jack Henry, a major provider of tech solutions and payment processing services, ended its 2019 fiscal year with 57 new financial institutions choosing to move to one of its core platforms. Nineteen of them were credit unions making a commitment to Symitar’s Episys. The community financial institutions range in size from $64 million to $9.6 billion in assets; six de novo banks also selected Jack Henry as their core platform provider.

Among the credit unions was the $2.5 billion Tullahoma, Tenn.-based Ascend Federal Credit Union, which selected the Symitar Episys platform to create a stronger member experience and drive innovation. The credit union sought to provide members the same type of service and convenience they know from online retail providers.

David Foss, president and CEO of Jack Henry & Associates, commented, “This is an exciting time in banking; the industry is open to more collaboration and advanced technologies, while renewing its focus on user centricity.”

The San Ramon, Calif.-based Lumin Digital, a PSCU company which delivers digital banking solutions to credit unions, announced the $309 million Westerly (R.I.) Community Credit Union signed a multi-year agreement for Lumin Digital’s cloud-based platform. Lumin Digital will provide the credit union’s digital banking solution for retail and mobile banking, as well as bill pay solutions.

“As more business shifts from traditional branch activity to online activity, we wanted to make sure our members are experiencing the same high level of service via our online and mobile banking platforms as they do face to face,” Stephen White, president and CEO for WCCU, said.

Added Jeff Chambers, president of Lumin Digital: “Providing unparalleled service and tailored digital experiences is paramount in everything we do.”

Tampa, Fla.-based Best Innovation Group, an innovation catalyst and strategic consulting partner focused on strengthening and growing credit unions, announced the addition of $1.08 billion Moline, Ill.-based Deere Employees Credit Union to its Innovation Club.

BIG’s Innovation Club seeks forward-thinking chief information officers and chief digital officers from credit unions to come together several times each year. The group engages in educational and innovative projects using new technology to solve some of today’s most pressing issues for the financial services industry from robotic process automation to distributed ledger, conversational banking, and machine learning and artificial intelligence.

DECU’s Chief Information Officer, Pete Sedgwick, said. “The credit union movement is a very collaborative environment; we know there is a lot of insight that we can gain from working closely with such a forward-thinking group of credit unions.”

BIG consulting managing partner, Kirk Kordeleski, noted the Innovation Club is an important way for both BIG and its clients to stay at the top of their game relative to fintech innovation. “Big banks are spending billions of dollars every year on technology innovation. Even the largest credit unions will have trouble matching the scale of that research and development on their own. But when we join together, we have the ability to share research and collaborate on development efforts that not only solve problems for our individual credit unions but help prepare our industry for the advancements that are ahead.”

Austin, Texas-based Open Lending, a provider of automated lending solutions and Lenders Protection default insurance, signed deals with 35 new clients in the first half of 2019.

“Open Lending is very pleased that so many credit unions are seeing the value in our offerings, from risk analysis to our Lenders Protection program that helps credit unions safely earn higher yields on loans to credit-challenged members,” Open Lending CEO John Flynn said. “Given the softening in the auto lending market, right now is a perfect time for credit unions to test the near- and non-prime waters.”

The fintech firm said Open Lending Lenders Protection credit union clients earn 300% to 400% higher net ROA on their near- and non-prime portfolios than on their prime portfolios. Open Lending determines credit unions’ best risks to take with members who do not have an “A” credit profile using various alternative data and trends and backed by Lenders Protection default insurance.

The credit unions joining Open Lending this year range in size from $15 million to $4.3 billion, from Idaho to Virginia to Texas.

The Tampa, Fla.-based analytics and consulting organization Trellance announced the $600 million, Seattle-based Verity Credit Union joined the OnApproach M360 Enterprise industry platform. According to Trellance this collaborative ecosystem creates communities of users, data scientists and application developers.

“We ultimately chose OnApproach M360 because we wanted to partner with a company that has a shared interest in promoting and enhancing the concept of collaborative analytics.  The platform allows Verity to begin the process of aggregating our own data so that we have a better perspective of our members and allows us access to the community of other M360 clients and related vendors.  Easing the ability for credit unions to work together in the data analytics space, was definitely a positive,” Jae Lee, director of research and analysis at Verity Credit Union, said. “The M360 platform will serve as the initial step towards developing a self-service reporting model and ultimately towards our long-term objective of developing into a data driven organization,” he added.

Trellance President & CEO, Tom Davis said, “We are pleased that more credit unions are seeing great value in our M360 platform, not only as a solution to help them centralize their data and make better business decisions based on data, but as a platform to collaborate with their peers as they move along their data journey.”