Henry C. Meier, author of a recent opinion piece for CU Times, "Is It Time to Get Your Head Out of the Clouds?", made some good points, particularly about ensuring your credit union has the right information it needs to make a good decision regarding the cloud. Cloud-based core processing is the future of credit union banking because the benefits outweigh the risks. In fact, Deloitte found that financial institutions moving to the cloud tripled between 2016 and 2018. A more recent survey found that cloud computing was a top-five spending priority in 2023 for more than 40% of U.S. bank executives, as reported by BAI. Adopting cloud technology helps credit unions stay competitive with the flexibility they need and the services members deserve. Given its importance, our credit union leaders must ensure they're well educated on the topic.

As I wrote in my recent piece for CU Times, fewer than five of the core processing systems on the market for credit unions were built on code that's less than 30 years old. Those legacy systems have been held together with baling wire and bubble gum. With all the updates and maintenance required in this mishmash of patchwork, it can certainly present issues ranging from pure breakages to security problems.