CU Times 2024 Luminaries Awards Finalists: Third-Party Product Innovation

The future of payments is increasingly moving towards integration within banking services, with “pay by bank” options becoming more prevalent. Tyfone built IPX into its Digital Banking platform to ensure compatibility with any digital banking system, promoting broader adoption. Additionally, Tyfone is launching a separate company to manage IPX independently, ensuring its neutrality and compatibility with all digital banking providers.

QCash Financial, LLC

QCash’s patented relational underwriting technology allows historically marginalized and vulnerable populations to access safe, efficient and equitable small-dollar loans, which would otherwise cause financial turmoil due to inflated fees and interest rates of predatory lenders. Together with QCash, credit unions have the power to better serve the underserved. To make a difference in the lives of their members. To put an end to the predatory payday lending cycle. To improve their members’ financial well-being and provide hope when it’s needed most. It’s time we do more, and we can do it together.

Mahalo Banking

In 2023, Mahalo launched its Thoughtful Banking platform, a pioneering solution catering to the neurodiversity of credit union members, ensuring a consistent and accessible experience. The platform goes beyond ADA compliance requirements to offer a digital experience that addresses the diverse needs of all credit union members. The platform provides an inclusive experience for members with varying cognitive and neurological abilities through features such as colorblindness view options, left-hand use modes, dyslexic font options, the ability to disable animations for those with epilepsy and more.

Product Innovation – Artificial Intelligence

Eltropy

The company’s recently launched ”Safe AI” suite demonstrates Eltropy’s commitment to innovation. The suite includes AI Agents, AI Assistants and AI Intelligence, each designed to address specific challenges faced by CFIs. The AI Agents, for instance, can handle over 60% of common member inquiries, significantly improving self-service options while maintaining the option for seamless transfer to human agents when needed.

Glia

As part of Glia’s Unified Interaction Management (UIM) platform, which unites digital, voice and automation with a ChannelLess architecture, Glia Cortex is empowering credit unions to transform their contact center with AI that is safe, secure and delivers tangible ROI without complexity. The platform is built with specific, comprehensive guardrails in place to ensure compliance, security and efficiency for credit unions and their members.

boost.ai

This year, boost.ai launched Generative Action, the first truly hybrid AI solution that combines the best of both conversational and generative AI into a singular solution. This innovation came only one year after boost.ai’s initial generative technology launch, which allowed AI managers to utilize LLM’s in the training and upskilling of conversational AI (CAI) virtual agents. Now, with Generative Action, credit unions can deploy a solution driven by the most sought-after technology in business today, without fear of increased risk to customers thanks to boost.ai’s unique approach to responsible AI development.

Shastic

Earlier this year, Shastic unveiled Mago, its latest automation solution. This end-to-end AI workflow automation platform revolutionizes the industry by providing community-based financial institutions with state-of-the-art AI banking workforces. Mago will automatically complete tasks for credit unions, including document processing, member onboarding, application recapture and cross-selling capabilities.

Open Lending

This year, Open Lending upgraded its Lenders Protection platform with an enhanced scorecard fueled by the integration of 21 new alternative data attributes. With AI-powered analysis, these expanded criteria from TransUnion and LexisNexis allow Lenders Protection to analyze more robust car buyer data for loan decisioning. Greater visibility into borrower potential helps credit unions provide more competitive pricing to a larger borrower pool, increase loan volume, minimize risk and grow return on assets.

Zest AI

In an effort to address the unfairness inherent to America’s financial system, Zest AI’s advanced AI technology has significantly increased lending approvals, particularly for underrepresented groups that have been historically underserved, while also bolstering credit union lending businesses. Zest AI’s underwriting technology increases approvals for Hispanics by 49%, Blacks by 41%, AAPI by 31% and women by 40%, all while holding risk constant.

nCino

For nCino, AI starts with its nIQ products, which they’ve been developing for over five years. nIQ demonstrated its initial success in utilizing its unmatched data assets to provide intelligence and actionable insights at the point of production across a single platform. By operationalizing data with nIQ, credit unions can accelerate revenue growth, improve operational efficiencies, and deliver unique end user experiences. Now, they have taken their next innovative steps with the launch and deployment of a generative AI (Gen AI) co-pilot, Banking Advisor.

Product Innovation – Core Processing

SMA Technologies

The organization’s greatest strategic initiative in product innovation over the past year has been the release of OpCon LTS 23. This long-term support (LTS) version is a culmination of all the short-term support (STS) releases from the past year, representing a significant milestone in the evolution of the OpCon platform. The LTS 23 release brings a host of new features and solutions, enhancing the platform’s capabilities and reinforcing its position as a leader in automation and workflow management.

FusionIQ

FusionIQ’s greatest strategic initiative over the past year is the development and launch of FusionIQ One, an end-to-end cloud-native wealth management platform introduced in June 2023. This platform is a comprehensive, all-in-one solution designed to eliminate the friction between the front, middle and back offices in a single digital workflow. This core integration platform breaks new ground by simplifying the wealthtech stack, creating efficiencies and reducing platform costs, making it possible for credit unions to scale for profitable organic growth.

MDT

MDT focuses on bringing solutions to solve each credit union’s unique challenges. For instance, credit unions often lack the resources and time to effectively staff and execute major projects as they arise. That’s why last year, the company launched its Project Management Consulting Services, helping credit unions plan, implement and optimize their use of the core as well as other critical initiatives across the organization. Through the offering, proven MDT experts are helping credit unions manage project scope, cost, time and quality.

Janusea

Enhancement and expansion of its integration translation platform to bring new fintech solutions to credit unions and community banks have been Janusea’s greatest strategic initiative over the past year. This initiative focused on significantly improving the platform’s ability to connect with legacy banking cores and new fintech solutions, providing a seamless integration experience for credit unions.

Nymbus

Over the past year, Nymbus has solidified its reputation as a pioneer in banking technology through strategic innovations, particularly with the development of Nymbus Connect and its comprehensive data pipelines. These initiatives are designed to address the complex challenges faced by community banks and credit unions, empowering them to leverage data more effectively and remain competitive in an increasingly digital landscape.

Product Innovation – Credit/Debit/Payments

Alacriti

In the past year, Alacriti has undertaken a significant initiative in product innovation: The launch of a Payments Hub that integrates and orchestrates multiple rails while providing services and integration to existing banking infrastructure. The Payments Hub cuts through silos while modernizing payments and providing seamless, easy-to-use and secure real-time payment experiences across all preferred channels, rails, types and devices. Connection includes the FedNow Service, RTP network, VisaDirect, wires (national and cross-border) and ACH.

Tyfone

Tyfone’s greatest strategic initiative in the past year has been the development and implementation of the Instant Payment Xchange™ (IPX). This initiative focused on revolutionizing the payment processing landscape by introducing a comprehensive platform that supports a wide array of use cases, including A2A, P2P, digital wallets, payroll and bill payments, among others.

Alogent

Over the past year, Alogent has strategically prioritized enhancing user experience and fortifying check fraud mitigation capabilities within Unify, its cutting-edge deposits automation platform. This initiative marks a significant advancement for both credit union employees and members, offering a range of transformative benefits.

Zirtue

Zirtue’s greatest strategic initiative of the past year has been the development of Zirtue Pay, which was developed in part to help millions of credit union members gain access to a more inclusive payment option. Zirtue Pay is an embedded payments option, allowing customers to choose Zirtue at checkout, then seamlessly create a structured agreement for members of their inner circle to help pay their critical bills.

FINBOA

FINBOA’s product innovation focus during the past year was the development of an automated decisioning feature that allows credit union administrators of the FINBOA Payments Disputes solution to set parameters (rules) to automatically process disputes and identify exceptions and move those to a queue for further review.