As credit unions slowly tackle the emerging mobile question, onething has become certain: members both young and old are requiringever increasing access to financial products and services to fittheir hectic lifestyles.

The challenge then is how to invest intechnology that is substantive and enduring as opposed to fad basedand short lived. One need only to look at the tech trends of thelast 10 years to realize that social media has become ascommonplace as AM radio was back in its day. But is this a trendthat will last?

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In the early days of the PC, Moore’s law stated that thecomputing power of the microprocessor would double every 18 months.That law has stayed true up until the emergence of mobile phonesand tablets. Now the question becomes one of how much processingpower do you really need when weighed in against battery life andusability of mobile apps.

Subsequently, the question smart credit unions are asking whatis the primary benefit going to be for our members if we offermobile and social media services and invest in the infrastructureto do so knowing that the current trend for it may be only a fewyears before another technology disruption occurs.

If I were to look out into my own crystal ball, I see one trend­emerging that I think could become very disruptive to allfinancial institutions. That trend is growth of mobile wallets ormobile electronic payments.

Companies like Google are already finding niches in grocerystores with their Google Wallet. Other tech companies such asPayPal are also beginning to offer customers the ability toexchange funds via their smartphones.

Could there also be fundamental changes in how currency andcommerce are transacted in the near future? I think theobvious answer is yes. So the bigger question is if peopleare willing to bypass the traditional brick-and-mortar branches andopt for mobile services because it fits their lifestyle, are wealso looking at fundamental shifts away from people-to-peoplerelationships that have always been the principal characteristicbehind the credit union philosophy? Will it shift more towardimpersonal but convenient and quick technology options?

My answer to both questions is, again, yes.

So back to the original inquiry of how are credit unions goingto address a very fluid mobile movement and all the constant­evolving that goes along with it.

Simply put, they are going to have to put infrastructurecomponents in place that can handle 24-7 demand, as well as theunderlying application components to allow for near real-timedecision making capabilities.

At the core of this issue, there remains a constant of thecollection, analysis and assimilation of data that will drive thesedecision criteria. Credit unions are going to have to learn to usetheir data more effectively, reaching out to members to enable andempower them to transact their business 24-7. But how does one goabout that task?

Core data processing systems have been promoting marketingcustomer information file solutions for years. Companies like Mint,Geezeo, and Money Desktop, among others, have been addressing thepersonal financial management market by assimilating members’financial data and then making recommendations based on financialtrends tied to members’ profiles.

With proximity systems currently being developed by the phonecompanies, interest levels based on how long one lingers at a shopwindow or the amount time spent at a mall or grocery store, willalso start providing additional demographic profiles that can beused for targeting specific services and goods.

The bottom line is that forward thinking credit unions willrealize building their own internal business processes andautomating them is going to be one of the keys to staying on top ofthe exponential technology growth that smart data will drive andwill keep members onboard.

One of the best sources of some key demographic data canpotentially lie in a credit union’s document managementsystem. Unfortunately, most credit unions are using verysimple imaging systems to store documents and do not take advantageof immense gold mine of demographic data that can be mined with atrue electronic content management system.

Most elite electronic document management systems also integrateworkflow components that allow criteria based data decisions to bebuilt on top of not only the current ECM system, but extend thecapability to other components as well, giving credit unions theability to build business process models that will allow unattendeddecisions to be made on an around the clock basis without the needto staff for such things.

If a credit union can define and refine their current businessprocesses and break them down into a series of steps that can bereplicated, these business process management solutions can thenbegin to automate a lot of the decision criteria necessary to stayon top the technology juggernaut by giving them an agile way toaddress trend changes quickly and easily without requiring acomplete forklift upgrade on the back end infrastructure andapplication components every time something new comes along.

Mobile banking, mobile payment exchanges and mobilelending still require some kind of decision criteria to drivethose processes. If credit unions will recognize that implementingthe proper backend technology solutions, these BPM solutions canhelp address part of that equation by insuring the ability tochange and respond quickly and economically when new disruptionsoccur.

Scott Cowan is vice president of sales and marketing atMillennial Vision Inc.

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