In my experience, and likely in yours as well, consumerexpectations regarding financial products and services are alwaysgrowing. This seems to be particularly true when it comes toonline, mobile and alternate channels, and is in many waysattributable to consumer exposure to technologies that areredefining how we conduct business, interact with others andgenerally live our lives.

Take, for example, the rise of “apps.” Ten years ago mostconsumers had probably never heard of an app. Today there’s an appfor pretty much anything you want to do online or on a mobiledevice, including keeping track of your finances. Want to checkyour account balance? There’s an app for that. Deposit a check?There’s an app for that too.

Like all service delivery methods, apps come with their ownchallenges. In many cases, apps are written for one platform – suchas the Apple iPhone or a Google Android device, each with their ownvirtual store filled with custom apps. In addition to these wildlypopular devices there are many other types of smartphones, tabletsand traditional computer desktops through which consumers expect tointeract with their financial institutions.

For credit unions that want to deliver services to their membersanywhere, anytime, across different channels, platforms anddevices, this plethora of choice can be a huge headache. Appswritten for one platform have to be rewritten to work on others,which can take up lots of time and resources and often slow time tomarket.

Does that mean that it is impossible to deliver consistentanywhere, anytime, any channel access? Not necessarily.

Companies are emerging that address the problems associated withdevice proliferation. Technology from Fiserv partner WorkLight, forexample, enables an app to be written once and then quickly andefficiently optimized and deployed to run in multiple environments.This streamlines the development process, dramatically improvesspeed to market, and lowers the support burden.

This cross-platform application development capability allowscredit unions to extend new and existing banking and paymentsfunctions to multiple environments beyond their traditional onlineor mobile presence, and is particularly useful for creatinglightweight, single-purpose apps. Additionally, it affords creditunions the ability to reach members through more channels,including social network sites, tablets and smartphones. This is akey strategic consideration for credit unions as these alternatechannels are the ones Gen Y and younger members use on a regularbasis.

Emerging cross-platform application development tools willenable credit unions to get to market quickly with multi-channel,multi-platform applications, leading to improved services andcustomer experience, and likely boosting satisfaction andstickiness. In the quest to meet consumer’s every-increasingexpectations, technology that enables credit unions to deliveranywhere, anytime access will be one of our biggest allies.

Scott Hess is vice president of consulting and innovations,Digital Channels, at Fiserv Inc.