Hughes takes wireless initiative into its own hands

LOS ANGELES - Hughes Aircraft Employees FCU is the latest credit union to go wireless-and the credit union did much of the tinkering needed to go wireless on its own. The credit union will offer members access to its Paymaster DirectT home branching system via the popular Palm VII personal digital assistant and the Palm.Net service. "Back in September of 1999 I purchased my first Palm VII and was pretty excited about the ability to wireless. I just thought it would be a terrific addition to our home banking capabilities," said Rudy Pereira, senior vice president and chief technology officer for HAEFCU. Little did Pereira know his inclination to go wireless would become an industry trend. In just the last month Texans FCU, USE CU and The Golden 1 CU have all unveiled wireless services. The unique aspect of HAEFCU's wireless initiative is that it's not sending members to a scaled down version of its Edify Internet banking solution. "We developed a code to the backend of our Concentrex platform. We've put all the functionality of the home banking system on the Palm. So that's a little unique. It speaks to having a back-end solution open enough to bring in all the information needed for home banking," said Pereira. "We didn't have to create a wireless platform. We're making API (Application Program Interface) calls directly to the back-end," said Pereira. Pereira said the credit union began the coding in February and had the application done in just two months. Members can download the Web clipping application for Paymaster Direct from HAEFCU's Web site at paymaster.org. The Palm.Net service gives members wireless access from over 250 metropolitan markets. -pgentile@cutimes.com