ARLINGTON, Va. -- Automation and the capacity to perform shared branching transactions without actually standing in front of a credit union teller was the top shared branching story of 2007.
Generally credit union shared branching has continued to grow. The strength of the service as a method of disaster preparation and mitigation that really came to the forefront on the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita also helped CUs serve their members in other disasters this year. This has led to more credit unions building shared branching participation into their disaster planning.
In addition, CO-OP Financial Services Shared Branching reported that its Next Generation Switch was fully up and running across the network. This first-ever credit union-owned data switch lets CO-OP Shared Branching tellers see a much wider field of information on members' credit union accounts and facilitates greater service and fraud prevention, CO-OP says.
But the biggest single innovation in shared branching this year was the advent of automated shared branching through Vcom kiosks in 7-Eleven stores around the country.
Since September, members of credit unions that participate in shared branching have been able to walk into 2,000 7-Eleven stores across the country and perform all the shared branch transactions that they could do through a participating credit union.
In order to use the kiosks the members have had to initially answer some security questions that validate their identity, as well as choose a shared branching personal identification number for future transactions. But after this initial session just the use of their ATM card and the PIN has been sufficient to let them in.
"This has been a long time coming but we are just thrilled with what this can mean for all credit unions in the whole country," said Sarah Canepa Bang, CEO of Financial Services Centers Cooperative, the East Coast-based shared branching network which put the shared branching deal with 7-Eleven and Vcom together.
Although the arrangement was just between FSCC and 7-Eleven, because of the cooperative nature of shared branching, members of credit unions who are not FSCC member institutions can use the machines as well.
The network first announced the deal in 2006 and has been working ever since on ironing out the kinks. The final stage was a beta test with nine locations which started in July of this year and has recently been completed, Bang said.
--dmorrison@cutimes.com
