CU Times talked with three credit union technologists to find out where they will be spending their IT dollars in 2015.

Post-Core Conversion Spending

“We break our IT spending up into two categories. First, there's the keeping the lights on/doors open category,” Kristopher Kovacs, SVP of operations for the $2.2 billion, 197,000-member Coastal Federal Credit Union in Raleigh, N.C., said.

He said the other category represents the various projects and initiatives throughout the credit union.

“We just completed a core conversion, so we've been locked down on our non-core projects for the better part of three years,” Kovacs said.

In addition to the conversion to Symitar's Episys platform, Coastal also converted eight ancillary systems as part of the project, he added. The credit union deployed a member relationship management system at that time. Kovacs and his team now need to catch up on other projects not related directly to the conversion.

“Part of what we're looking at from a spend perspective is, how do we take these new systems and further integrate them into our organization,” Kovacs said.

For example, he said that since the credit union didn't previously run an MRM system, it now needs to invest in analytics software to support the best use of that system. Coastal is also exploring ways to share information available through these new systems with its members, Kovacs said.

“It does us a limited amount of good to use this information internally, but we believe there's even more value in giving our members a view of some of that information,” he noted.

This initiative to push more information out to the members will also require additional investment in the credit union's digital banking channels, Kovacs said. He used MRM as an example.

“Once you have the right offer and you're able to track it, you need a way to deliver it to the member and facilitate the communication with that member,” he explained.

Coastal is working with an outside firm to develop the interface between the MRM system and the credit union's digital banking platform. Kovacs said the core conversion forced the credit union not only to reevaluate all of its older systems, but also how those systems are deployed.

“Many of these systems require a tremendous amount of hardware and software. Do we want to spend our time managing that hardware and software, or do we want to put it in the cloud?”

Kovacs' staff will devote considerable time in 2015 evaluating each major system for possible cloud deployment in 2016, he said.

Moving Away from Best-of-Breed

“There's no pile of money you can give me that I can't spend,” said Brad Williams, chief technology officer for South Carolina Credit Union, who is responsible for all technology spending at the $1.3 billion, 150,000-member institution in Charleston, S.C.

“Next year, Windows Server 2003 will be going off of support, so that's forcing us to replace a few systems,” Williams said.

Many vendors support different versions of their own software depending on the version of Windows Server, so upgrading that program to a more current version will also require product upgrades, he noted.

“That's a big chunk of money,” Williams said.

When the financial downturn hit in 2008, the credit union was forced to rethink nearly all of the ways it did everything in order to reduce operating expenses, he recalled.

“About two years ago, we came up with a way to revamp the way we do our products and services and who we do them with, and reduce our operating expenses as a result,” Williams said. “We chose Fiserv as our all-encompassing vendor.”

South Carolina CU currently runs Fiserv Spectrum as its core data processing platform, he added.

“We decided to move away from our best-of-breed strategy where we dumped millions of dollars into systems that we never really fully utilized,” Williams pointed out.

He said Fiserv provides virtually every technology product a credit union might need.

“We decided to go with them as our first choice, and as long as they can provide what we need, we'll buy from them.”

This approach creates an economy of scale that reduces both upfront costs and ongoing maintenance costs, Williams said, adding, “We've seen a huge lift to our operating expense reduction as a result.”

Using only Fiserv products actually came about when the credit union decided to convert to Fiserv's ill-fated Acumen platform, Williams said.

“When Acumen went away, we said, 'let's continue forward with the ancillary products and save a new core search for later.'”

So far, Spectrum has been able to provide all the features and functionality the credit union needs and Fiserv has recently committed to a substantial investment in continued Spectrum development, Williams said.

“It could turn out that Spectrum is sustainable long-term. After we get all of the Fiserv products deployed, which will take another year, we'll step back and see what we think.”

Three Priorities

David Dang, SVP of information technology at the $440 million, 50,000-member PrimeWay Federal Credit Union in Houston, said the cooperative wants to focus on three areas in 2015.

“The first area is mobile,” he said. The credit union has been running the Corelation KeyStone core processing platform for the past two years. Dang said while PrimeWay has a mobile presence now, he wants to expand it. The credit union will also add mobile remote deposit capture by the end of 2014.

“Our goal is to have all the functionality currently available in our online banking platform available through mobile,” he said.

The credit union currently uses Digital Insight for both online banking and mobile. Dang said he wants to extend the mobile platform beyond the company's current capabilities.

“For example, account opening – we definitely want that as part of our mobile platform,” We're even looking at delivering member service via mobile.”

Dang said he expects to be able to integrate all of these new features into the existing Digital Insight platform.

“The second area of priority is security. We want to focus on security for both our members as well as internally here at PrimeWay,” he shared.

The credit union is committed to providing its members extensive training and information on security-related matters.

“On the PrimeWay side, we continue to add additional layers of security,” Dang said. “I'm a strong believer in layered security. I call it the onion approach. Every layer a hacker peels, there's an additional layer there to protect us.”

He admitted that it's impossible to completely thwart all cybercriminals. However, a well-designed layered approach to security will serve as a strong deterrent and encourage hackers to looks elsewhere, Dang said.

“The third area we're looking at in 2015 is video. How do we utilize video to remotely serve members? I believe that's the future of member service.”

To that end, PrimeWay is exploring the possibility of migrating to a video-enabled call center, thereby creating a more personal, face-to-face experience for members, Dang said.

“Truly, what I want for PrimeWay is to offer both a high-touch and high-tech user experience.”

Instant Insights /

CU Technologists Talk IT Costs in 2015

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