Alloya's Educational Community Focuses on Faster Payments

The Naperville, Ill.-based Alloya Corporate Federal Credit Union unveiled its new educational community last week, which aims to build a better network for credit unions to understand the evolving landscape of faster and real-time payments. The community is called Alloya Insights: Faster Payments.

In a statement late last week, officials with Alloya ($7 billion in assets, 1,402 members) stated that the credit union wanted to build a community “where credit unions can learn from and help one another, and develop and implement a faster payments member experience strategy.”

“The Clearing House’s RTP® Network will celebrate its fifth anniversary this year, and this time next year we’ll be looking forward to the launch of the Federal Reserve’s FedNow℠ Service,” Kurt Stevenson, SVP of payments at Alloya, said. “So, it’s safe to say that credit unions are facing pressure to join the movement toward faster and real-time payments, particularly as we saw credit unions’ customer satisfaction rating fall behind banks for a second consecutive year.”

According to the credit union, that drop in consumer satisfaction, as stated in the 2020 American Customer Satisfaction Index, was a wake-up call to not only create the educational community, but to show how far credit unions have to go with creating a digital environment that members can rely on.

“At this critical juncture, joining the faster payments movement could be make or break for some credit unions,” Stevenson said. “As we’ve been having these discussions with some of Alloya’s members, many have expressed uneasiness and uncertainty about getting in the proverbial game. This prompted Alloya to identify an opportunity to further our mission of supporting credit union success by launching the Alloya Insights: Faster Payments educational community. That’s why we have dedicated significant senior management resources to research and develop this initiative.”

For a fee of $2,500, credit unions that join the community will gain access for their employees to live educational webinars, virtual events and an online portal that will include forums, topic briefings and other exclusive payments information, according to the statement from Alloya.

Alloya Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer Jim Schneck said, “We believe this is the best mechanism for a service like this. The faster payments ecosystem is ever-changing and evolving, and credit unions need a way to reconcile and make sense of the mass quantities of information that are published by a multitude of outlets seemingly round-the-clock. By joining the Alloya Insights: Faster Payments community, credit unions will effectively be able to outsource the research and analysis processes to our team.”

Alloya Insights: Faster Payments will launch on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2022 with a free and informational webinar.