Technology has been called the great equalizer, allowing eventhe smallest credit unions to go head-to-head with the largestbanks in terms of e-services.

However, it's not enough to just have technology fortechnology's sake. It's essential to have the right technology inplace. The good news is that there are more technology options forcredit unions than ever before. Unfortunately, that's also the badnews. There's a fine line between ample options and too manyoptions, and credit union technology continually walks thatline.

Not As Easy As It Used To Be

Thirty years ago, technology decisions were easy. A creditunion's data processor offered an array (but not necessarily a widearray) of add-on products, and the credit union either deployedthem or didn't. In other words, credit unions were limited towhatever their data processors decided to offer.

Slowly but surely, market demand gave rise to third-partyancillary products, and also put pressure on data processingproviders to accommodate them. Credit unions rightly insisted onthe ability to deploy best-of-breed solutions without obstructionfrom their data processors, and data processors begrudgingly gavein, sometimes charging seemingly excessive integration fees toensure they still got some small piece of the pie.

Is Best Of Breed Really Best?

Best of breed has been the popular approach in credit uniontechnology for a number of years now, and with good reason. Bypicking and choosing which solutions are best suited for theirparticular environment, credit unions are able to take control oftheir technological landscape and ultimately custom-tailor themember experience.

The downside is that going the best-of-breed route requires aconsiderable investment – in both time and money. The IT staff istypically larger in this environment. There are often integrationfees that need to be paid to the data processing provider. Productdeployment typically takes longer than with a dataprocessor-provided solution.

The single question that each credit union must answer is: Arethe incremental gains in functionality and/or control worth theadded investment? Today, data processor-provided solutions seem tobe making a resurgence as more and more credit unions answerno.

One-Stop Shopping

Why the shift? While certainly not right for every credit union,a one-stop-shopping approach offers several advantages:

• Easier deployment.
• Tighter integration of products.
• “One throat to choke.”
• Less burden on IT staff.
• Lower total cost of ownership.

Lower TCO can be especially important, because many dataprocessing providers will discount ancillary products to encouragerenewals for their primary products.

And Then Came Omnichannel

Over the last couple of years, omnichannel has become thedominant industry buzzword. Beyond multichannel—offering servicesthrough several different channels—omnichannel calls for financialinstitutions to offer a consistent and unique user experienceacross all service channels. While it may seem that data processingproviders, with their one-stop-shopping approach, are betterpositioned to deliver on consistency, their solutions may not offerthe customizability that can translate to a unique user experience.If best-of-breed providers can deliver highly flexible, adaptablesolutions that can integrate well into an omnichannel strategy,they may have the final word in the best-of-breed vs.one-stop-shopping debate.