16 Credit Unions Invest in Posh, a Conversational AI-Focused CUSO

Sixteen credit unions have invested in a new CUSO partially owned by the Boston-based fintech Posh Technologies, a provider of a conversational artificial intelligence product suite comprised of website and online banking chatbots, and a phone bot.

Other details on the ownership structure of the Posh CUSO, and the credit unions’ investment amounts, were not disclosed.

The $3.5 billion, Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Truliant Federal Credit Union, in announcing its role as an investor on Tuesday, said Posh Technologies’ chatbots will be integrated into the credit union’s website and online banking system, and the fintech’s phone bot will be used in its telephony and contact center technology. Truliant also plans to develop an AI lab as part of its partnership with the fintech, where the two organizations will collaborate to create innovative experiences for members and integrate AI technology into the credit union’s broader technical ecosystem.

“Fintech collaboration will bring more simplicity and speed to how members interact with our services. Posh can quickly build and scale Truliant specific AI-based solutions to create better tech-driven experiences,” Todd Hall, president/CEO of Truliant, stated.

Karan Kashyap, co-founder and CEO of Posh Technologies, added, “We’re thrilled to partner with Truliant. We look forward to freeing up their Member Contact Center to focus on the most urgent and complicated calls while elevating the overall banking experience for Truliant members.”

The 15 other credit unions that invested in the Posh CUSO are:

• Affinity Federal Credit Union ($3.6 billion, Basking Ridge, N.J.)
• Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union ($3.4 billion, St. Paul, Minn.)
• Chartway Federal Credit Union ($2.49 billion, Virginia Beach, Va.)
• Digital Federal Credit Union ($9.85 billion, Marlborough, Mass.)
• Langley Federal Credit Union ($3.86 billion, Newport News, Va.)
• One Nevada Credit Union ($1.2 billion, Las Vegas)
• Service Federal Credit Union ($4.9 billion, Portsmouth, N.H.)
• State Department Federal Credit Union ($2.4 billion, Alexandria, Va.)
• Securityplus Federal Credit Union ($468.6 million, Baltimore)
• Workers Credit Union ($2.1 billion, Littleton, Mass.)
• Together Credit Union ($2.2 billion, St. Louis, Mo.)
• Lake Trust Credit Union ($2.4 billion, Brighton, Mich.)
• MassMutual Federal Credit Union ($359.6 million, Springfield, Mass.)
• Patelco Credit Union ($8.7 billion, Dublin, Calif.)
• USAlliance Federal Credit Union ($2 billion, Rye, N.Y.)

According to Posh Technologies Vice President of Strategic Growth Elise Sherman, the fintech’s bots not only help credit unions free up their contact center representatives’ time, they can also generate income for credit unions through their sales generation and marketing capabilities. The website bot, which takes one to two weeks to implement, answers visitors’ basic questions on topics such as branch hours, ATM locations and routing numbers. The banking bot sits on a member’s online banking dashboard, and in addition to answering questions, it can complete workflow requests through a core system integration, such as requests to check account balances, make payments and transfers, or put travel freezes on cards. It can also act as a personal financial advisor and market products to members, Sherman said.

The phone bot replaces touch-pad and dial-pad menus, providing callers with a voice-driven experience and creating efficiency, Sherman noted. “When you have a touchpad, you’re beholden to digits one to nine on that touch pad so you can’t really offer more than nine options,” she said. “With voice, though, you can support an infinite amount of use cases. Since we’re AI-powered, we also eliminate all hold times for members. Our phone bot authenticates callers, answers questions, executes transactions and escalates to actual human contact center reps if necessary, contextualizing the call so far for the reps so they can efficiently complete it.”

Founded in 2018 by Kashrap and Co-founder Matt McEachern, Posh Technologies was the result of a graduate research project completed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and works with a total of more than 30 credit unions across 40 engagements.