OE Federal Credit Union Turns to Private Cloud Infrastructure
The credit union's decision to leverage the private cloud has little to do with the broader trend to a remote workforce.
This week, OE Federal Credit Union announced it will transition to the Episys core platform, offered by Symitar, which itself is a division of technology provider Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. The platform will be hosted on Jack Henry’s private cloud environment.
Mike Donohue, president/CEO of the Livermore, Calif.-based OE Federal said that while his organization previously thought private cloud infrastructure is only a necessity for small credit unions, security considerations pushed OE Federal toward adopting Symitar’s technology.
“Some of the reasoning behind it is the burden of security of the system. A lot of that falls on Symitar, not that we don’t still have a lot of security, but it’s easier and faster for Symitar to stay on the cutting edge of security than we can.”
In addition, he added that the credit union also chose Symitar because they “have a managed data recovery system, and they have data centers in different parts of the country.”
OE Federal joined a growing number of credit unions utilizing Symitar technology for their core functions. Earlier this year, the South Pasadena, Calif.-based Priority One Credit Union made the move to the Episys core platform, while last month, Advantage One Credit Union also picked Symitar as one of the two technology providers tasked with helping it through a virtual core conversion and digital banking platform launch.
OE Federal is also far from the only one leveraging a private cloud infrastructure, with over 200 credit unions also making the transition. “I do believe that [the private cloud] will continue to take off,” in large due to its security features, Donohue said. He added that relying on the private cloud allows the credit unions “to repurpose some of their in-house staff and better use their services for their internal network.”
While leveraging the private cloud also makes it easier to work remotely, Donohue noted that such considerations did not factor into OE Federal’s decision. “We started our search process probably a good 15 months ago — it was long before COVID-19 hit.”