Partnering Up to Evolve Credit Union Fintech

An assortment of some recent fintech partnership announcements that could affect credit unions includes help with rate resets, consumer FICO scores, staff cyberthreat education, organization performance assessment and digital brand advancement.

Middlebury, Vt.-based eDOC Innovations, a CUSO specializing in mobile enterprise digital transaction management solutions, announced their new partnership with Rate Reset, a McLean, Va.-based CUSO providing reset, recapture, pre-approval new loan and CD digital solutions, known as KNOCK KNOCK. According to the companies, Rate Reset, offers credit unions tools needed to complete with the big fintech companies.

“With the changing landscape of mobile members, eDOCSignature creates a new generation of opportunities for credit unions and their members. Our CUSO-to-CUSO collaboration is important to the industry by bringing greater value to credit unions and their members by empowering them to do business digitally in a mobile environment,” Mark Fierro, CEO of eDOC Innovations, commented, “I’m pleased to be partnering with a such a quality CUSO that is committed to, and living, the cooperative principles.”

“eDOC’s eSignature paired with our Knock Knock solutions will expand the remote services that credit unions can provide to their members,” Keith Kelly, CEO of Rate Reset, said. “Our partnership and deeply integrated solutions are about enhancing the member experience by eliminating the friction present in most member transactions today.”

Dallas based Ser Tech partnered with the Fair Isaac Corporation and their FICO Score Open Access program to provide consumers with real FICO scores through credit unions and banks’ home and mobile banking systems. In addition, Ser Tech’s Flitter can deliver multiple pre-approval offers along with a credit score to help borrowers determine better banking deals.

“Using Ser Tech’s Flitter program, our clients can now deliver consumers’ actual FICO scores on which financial institutions base their lending decisions,” Ser Tech CEO Shana Richardson explained. “Doing so provides consumers the transparency they crave and helps further position their credit union or community bank as their trusted adviser. Being able to make pre-approval offers through your credit union or banks’ home and mobile banking systems creates efficiencies for institutions to boost lending and saves consumers time and money.”

Richardson added, “Community financial institutions can’t afford to lose out to the hundreds of financial institutions already delivering FICO scores with pre-approvals to their customers and members.”

The 3.2 billion Irondale, Ala.-based Corporate America Credit Union partnered with Birmingham, Ala.-based ThreatAdvice, a NXTsoft solution, to offer members a solution to keep staff educated, informed and prepared for cyberthreats.

ThreatAdvice offers an online platform where credit union staff can educate themselves.  “You can never be too safe when it comes to informing your staff about scams and attacks that can harm an institution,” CACU Chief Technology Officer Donald Eagen said.  “We chose to partner with ThreatAdvice because we feel their platform offers ease of use and comprehensive awareness so our employees understand the risks businesses face.  We want to give our staff as much knowledge as possible.”

Atlanta, based FI Navigator Corp., which provides a web-based credit union vertical data and analytics platform and Boston-based Sievewright & Associates expanded their agreement to provide credit unions with a comprehensive performance assessment solution. FIN Advisor, they said, instantly generates a complete consultative assessment of a credit union’s profit, growth, risk, and member offering generating primary opportunity themes, specific strengths/opportunities and custom solution category recommendations.

Commenting on the expanded collaboration, credit union movement thought-leader and Sievewright & Associates founder, Mark Sievewright said, “FIN Advisor will automate the ability of credit unions to assess performance, manage risk and drive digital transformation. The rapid digital transformation of financial services requires credit unions to prioritize their investments to continue to thrive in a rapidly changing environment.”

FI Navigator’s CEO and founder, Steve Cotton, said, “Credit union executives understand the critical importance of pinpointing performance and product offering opportunities and allocating limited resources where they deliver the biggest member benefit. We’re privileged to expand our relationship with Sievewright & Associates to help credit unions continue their leadership in financial services.”

Miami-based NYMBUS licensed Atlanta-based fintech provider NCR’s D3 Digital Banking platform to provide comprehensive digital interactions in conjunction with NYMBUS’s SmartCore private cloud-based core processing platform. The combination of the NCR and NYMBUS platforms, according to the two fintech companies, allows financial institutions to rapidly deploy new digital bank brands to consumer and business customers.

“In today’s highly competitive financial services environment, institutions can no longer rely on dated or stagnant technology to grow their business,” David Mitchell, president, NYMBUS, said. “Combining NCR’s D3 digital banking platform with NYMBUS’ core banking platform allows us to better serve progressive financial institutions, and corporations with well-known brands seeking to address the needs of digital-savvy customers in high-growth market segments.”

“Financial institutions are introducing digital bank brands to meet the needs of Gen Z and millennials, address new market segments and drive deposit growth,” Mark Vipond, general manager, NCR D3 Digital Banking, said. “Combining our platforms allows financial institutions to rapidly go to market with digital banking offerings, quickly accelerate growth, and meet the needs of their customers.”