Resource Center

Successful CUs must have data and analytics at their core. As competitors are increasingly monetizing data, a competitive advantage can only be realized if credit unions learn to harness and combine it with data on customer preferences and context to gain deeper, richer insights and faster, better response. Doing so will allow CUs to meet their members’ expectations that are increasingly being based on the quality of interaction rather than product or price, both online and offline. 

Download this ebook to explore cutting insights and improve your chance of navigating turbulence and achieving sustainable growth; including a deeper understanding of:

• The competitive field has widened, thanks to fintech and neobanks
• Digital transformation accelerates
• Customer experience is now a strategic differentiator
• A new generation of customers emerges
• Cybersecurity and data privacy concerns loom large
• Risk management, operational stability and automation present challenges
• Integration and API management take center stage

The loan payment experience for your credit union is often the first impression. When it’s done right, indirect members love the experience—leading to opening new accounts or loans as direct members. However, when it’s inefficient and cumbersome, it can lead members to look elsewhere to meet their financial service needs.

Download this white paper that recaps a recent discussion about how to maximize your member experience through payments transformation and the benefits for your organization, including:

• How to improve your loan portfolio’s performance
• How to lower servicing costs via digital transformation
• Expanding the indirect loan portfolio with digital tools
• What members expect from modern money movement experiences

Banks and credit unions have traditionally lagged behind other more progressive industries in cloud adoption. Now, as market forces combine to accelerate the migration of lending to the cloud, this white paper discusses the journey that credit unions must inevitably make.

Cloud migrations offer greater flexibility and scalability of lending functions, delivering an overall lower total cost of ownership. Cloud technologies are also associated with greater innovation and customer satisfaction.

Download this white paper and learn:

• How the cloud improves your operational agility
• Tips to create a seamless journey to the cloud
• 6 benefits that cloud technology brings to your credit union

Despite the fact that payments represent 80% of consumers’ financial interactions, payments have traditionally been only a small part of a credit union’s business. Research indicates that credit unions are missing out on significant revenue opportunity through payments - one that large banks are quickly seizing.   

Being your members’ primary financial relationship (PFR) is about serving them where they live their financial lives today. But, as mobile and digital innovations continue to transform the consumer landscape, what members expect from payments is also changing. With member choices and expectations growing at a dizzying pace, how can CUs keep up?  

Download this whitepaper for instant access to strategy insights specifically for credit unions. Learn crucial plays credit unions can pull now to start winning the payments game, including:

• Where to invest to deliver exceptional experience and win deeper relationships with your members.  
• How to best use data to understand your members now, and in the future.   
• New ways payments can fuel every aspect of your business - including deposits and lending.  

Credit unions must battle for market share against global and national banks that invest hundreds of millions of dollars annually in analytics and data discovery solutions to improve the acquisition, service and retention of customers. In contrast, credit unions often rely on manual, legacy approaches to understand their data. The result is shaping up as an analytics “arms race” where institutions with the most powerful, innovative analytical insights outpace the others in profitable growth, member service and retention.

Download this ebook to learn how advanced analytics can transform credit union operations and finance, as well as the benefits credit unions can achieve, and the challenges they face when selecting and deploying analytics solutions to support their business strategies; including how to:

• Drive results with advanced analytics
• Strengthen member relationships
• Improve marketing segmentation
• Reduce fraud
• Build a competitive advantage

Even the most traditional credit unions can use analytics to improve operational and financial performance and member satisfaction. If your organization is not doing that, why not?

Analytics empowers credit unions to offer more individualized attention, more relevant products, and more holistic credit evaluations. At the same time, smart business intelligence also helps credit unions achieve the financial performance needed to continue offering member benefits, serve their communities, and fend off incursions from giant banking conglomerates.

Drawn from hard-learned lessons of successful credit union leaders, download this guide for a six-step roadmap that fosters operational changes and cultural shifts your organization needs; including key questions to ask and actions to take that will help you communicate the urgency of the mission to stakeholders and spur your organization forward. Plus, you will gain an understanding of:

• How does information flow in your organization?
• How solid is your data Infrastructure?
• How will your organization achieve important business outcomes?
• How to communicate your success
• What transformation looks like
• Ongoing assessment

The loan payment experience for your credit union is often the first impression. When it’s done right, indirect members love the experience—leading to opening new accounts or loans as direct members. However, when it’s inefficient and cumbersome, it can lead members to look elsewhere to meet their financial service needs.

Watch this on-demand webinar that explores how to maximize your member experience through payments transformation and the benefits for your organization, including:

• How to improve your loan portfolio’s performance
• How to lower servicing costs via digital transformation
• Expanding the indirect loan portfolio with digital tools
• What members expect from modern money movement experiences

As a credit union, you have deep community roots, loyal membership, and are always looking to grow market share. One way to help your members get the best rate or price is by optimizing your investor set. With increases in mortgage pricing granularity over the last couple years, it may be time to consider looking at going beyond your current investor(s) to do right by your members.

Download this whitepaper and learn how to quantify where to deliver your production, the process for auditing your investor base, and how to optimize your investor set. Plus, you will also learn:

• How to review your loan sale delivery method
• Considerations for choosing the right investors
• Questions to ask when exploring new programs and investors
• What investors look for in a quality seller
• And more!

Both a high cost of ownership and poor ROI have plagued the digital transformations of many credit unions and community banks over the years. With the problem stemming from the doorstop of legacy providers, these outmoded and inflexible stalwarts of the banking industry have not outlived their usefulness yet. But many are out of step with the technology required to meet consumer preferences in today’s environment. This actuality has led credit unions on a digital journey with many pathways and even more varied outcomes.

Download this eBook to learn:

• Success and failures of the most common digital transformation trails that CUs take 
• How to create a faster and more efficient path toward digital banking
• Lessons CUs can learn from fintech companies
• The role of APIs in meeting future digital demands

Proprietary insights from Leslie Parrish, senior analyst at Aite Group, show credit unions are losing ground in the battle for mortgage originations. Members face several challenges when it comes to understanding the mortgage process, including issues related to the down payment, appraisals and closings. Simultaneously, they are looking to lenders for a host of new capabilities that increase transparency and aid in streamlining the mortgage process.

While understanding consumer pain points can help financial institutions identify opportunities for gaining back market share, findings from Parrish also indicate that banks and credit unions aren’t well-positioned to respond. Lenders cited legacy technology and inefficient back-office processes as just a few of the impediments they face when it comes to meeting consumer preferences.

Download this report and discover how your CU can pave the way forward and take back mortgage market share by:

• Understanding key member pain points driving lower originations
• Turning the tide with APIs
• Streamlining performance and meeting member needs

Stolen or weak passwords contribute to an alarming 61% of company data breaches. Factor in the average cost of a corporate data breach — $4.24 million in 2021 — and you have one powerful, pricey little word. The fact is, each one of your employees is responsible for multiple passwords. This means your staff is the first line of defense when it comes to protecting your organization’s sensitive information. 

Download this guide to learn how to maximize diligence and minimize your risk; including:

• How employees can give away information unintentionally
• 3 myths about hackers
• Password mistakes and best practices
• Top 10 most common passwords in 2021
• 3 tech solutions for password security

Digital member engagement is evolving quickly. This year, customers will spend 25% more with companies that get digital transformation right.¹ It’s no wonder businesses are responding at astonishing speeds — they’re following the money. 

The earlier you think about a connected experience across your digital channels, the easier it is to create. Download this eBook for practical tips and tools to create a digital member engagement strategy that will last well into the future, including how to:

• Craft your vision
• Determine your starting point
• Get your stakeholders on board
• Establish your channel foundation
• Expand your comfort zone

1 - IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Future of Customer and Consumer 2021 Predictions

In collaboration with CO-OP, EY conducted a market research survey of 2,000 credit union members and 1,000 prospects across all regions of the U.S. to determine preferred banking behaviors. Research shows financial consumers' needs have changed in recent years. 

To address these evolving needs and expectations, credit unions must develop a comprehensive strategy to address the member experience by employing “needs-based segmentation” to better serve their members. 

Download this white paper for tips and deeper insights into the survey results;  including:

• How the financial landscape is evolving
• What is at the center of the primary financial relationship
• 3 keys to gaining active primary financial relationships
• Top 10 most impactful features for members and prospects
• What credit unions need to do now

Behind every credit card transaction is an opportunity for financial institutions to generate revenue through interchange and fee income, harness analytical cardholder-spend data and behavioral insights, and even create stickiness with customers or members through loyalty programs.

Financial institutions that don’t include Digital Customer Service to support their card programs and cardholder-facing tools, however, risk negative cardholder experiences that could ultimately jeopardize the entire customer or member relationship—and who wants that?!

Download this white paper and you will learn:

• How Digital Customer Service can enhance credit card offerings
• The importance of a well-structured card program
• The shortcomings of the cardholder experience as we know it today
• How incorporating a well-designed digital cardholder servicing strategy can save the day

For the first time, credit unions surpassed $1.2 trillion for their total loan portfolio in April 2021. This is an incredible achievement. However, it’s important to ensure the success of the loan—from open to payoff. With digital services accelerating over the last eighteen months, CUs need to give strategic thought to their operations and how they can keep pace to meet member expectations. 

This white paper explores a recent webinar discussion between Mary Woodard, Chief Operating Officer of Granite Credit Union, and Mark Ranta, Payments Practice Lead for Alacriti, about what credit unions can do to have more valuable loans through digital transformation. 

Download this paper to learn how to achieve this through:

• Seamless payments—recurring and automatic
• Uncovering new opportunities with indirect members
• The importance of setting a lending strategy and reducing friction
• Advantages of a universal employee model

"Once information is posted to a social networking site, it is no longer private. The more information you post, the more vulnerable you become.” – FBI 

Social media is a great way for businesses to reach new customers and efficiently zone in on their target audience. However, social hackers leveraging social media channels are increasingly gaining access to sensitive data. There are many recent compliance mandates and laws that have been put in place to create guidelines for how data is shared and used in social media, but it takes time to implement these controls and they do not protect you from everything. Businesses and individuals can continue to leverage social media, but both should make sure they are following best practices. 

Download this guide to gain a better understanding of the risks and best practices to follow when it comes to social media and your CU; including: 

• Common social media scams
• 6 tactics social engineers use to gain access to sensitive information and destroy reputations 
• 5 keys to safer socializing 
• 3 tips for educating your employees
• Social media best practices including proper password protocol

Sierra Pacific recently celebrated 30 years in business. After surviving the 2018 financial crisis, they set their sights on future-proofing from market shifts and reimagining ways to improve the antiquated, 30-year old mortgage process, in dire need of modernization.  

The team saw this an opportunity to re-engineer how the mortgage process should operate in the future. Through rigorous refinement and workflow optimization, Sierra Pacific is now enabled to close a refinance in just 7-10 days.

Download this brief to learn the top tips to achieve a 7-day closing; including:

• Choosing vendors with up-to-date processes
• Being upfront and transparent with customers
• Preventing operational inefficiencies and delays
• Re-engineer the closing workflow

How effective are your existing security controls against a skilled adversary? The best way to find out is by running a penetration test (a.k.a., pen testing). Pen testing uses the same techniques as a hacker to assess the security of an organization’s IT environment. During these evaluations, security vulnerabilities are uncovered and safely exploited in order to determine and prioritize risk for the organization. This gives organizations a path forward for remediation and provides proof of compliance for any industry best practices or regulations.  

Download this guide to learn the basics of pen testing and how you can incorporate them into your own security strategy; including:

• Intelligent vulnerability management
• Adherence to regulatory requirements
• Avoiding the costs of a breach
• The 6 stages of pen testing 
• How to maintain your testing moving forward

What if you could confidently clear titles within seconds — not weeks — to increase speed and accuracy in mortgage closings approved by the secondary market? Through a uniquely powerful combination of machine learning, public and private data sources, and predictive algorithms, instant title can determine how safe a property is from potential liens and other liabilities and provide a title commitment for 80% of refinance transactions – in less than one minute. That means your lending team can tap into a streamlined process to finance more loans for a wider variety of homes in a shorter period of time. 

Download this brief and learn how to transform your title search process with a streamlined solution. You will also learn how one credit union:

• Achieved instant clear-to-close for 84% of transactions
• Cut closes by three business days
• Reduced fees for mortgage customers by 15%
• Increased closed loan applications by 5%
• Raised capacity per processor by nearly 20%
• Recorded 93% customer satisfaction — greatly outperforming the industry standard average of 77%

Customer support teams have faced unprecedented challenges in recent months. For many organizations, the tough circumstances shone a harsh light on gaps in a critical area: digital engagement. And while the benefits of digital engagement have never been more clear, sometimes the path to execute looks a bit muddy.

Download this eBook which defines a five-phased approach you can use to evolve your digital engagement rapidly. You’ll learn how to:

• Fortify your digital self-service
• Amplify your digital support
• Empower your employees
• Optimize your support strategy
• Evolve to the next level of self-service

Unitus credit union faced a few challenges they were looking to solve: increase adoption with their new online banking platform, reduce reliance on physical branches, and expand member access to product and services. This case study explores how they increased adoption and helped members successfully use their online services—especially revenue-generating loan applications—without having to disrupt the online experience. 

Download the case study and learn how a video-powered digital member service platform helped them to: 

• Reduce online banking handle times by 28%
• Achieve fluidity between chat, audio and video, document sharing, and co-browsing
• Achieve 85% of members saying they would use the “Virtual Branch” again

The costs associated with fee and interest income when running a credit card program may be more complicated than they seem, especially if the program is not optimized. 

Download this whitepaper to understand factors that can affect the profitability of your credit union’s credit card program, including:

• Profit margin pressures
• Interest income: WAAPR vs. Revolve Rate and Fixed vs. Variable Rate
• Costs of interest income
• Fee income: direct and interchange
• Overall effect of costs on profitability

Consumer standards are moving toward a more cohesive and unified experience across all channels, including a single portal for business and consumer account opening and lending. Additionally, 71% of financial institutions are partnering with fintechs to rapidly evolve and grow market share in this evolving consumer landscape. 

Download white paper to discover:

• Why consumer standards are moving toward a more unified experience
• How fintechs play a part in digital
• A new path toward digital transformation built on design thinking
• How to provide a best-in-class experience

With over $1.3T in outstanding debt, auto lending is one of the largest consumer lending categories behind mortgages.¹ Despite its large size, banks and credit unions have struggled to build an auto loan portfolio that is both large and profitable. However, new market trends and innovations in AI underwriting technology now make it an emerging opportunity to fuel the growth of lenders’ auto loan portfolios.

Download this eBook and you'll learn 3 key strategies for winning in auto refinancing, including:

• How to market the opportunity
• How to make a compelling offer
• How to remove barriers for consumers

¹  Household Debt and Credit Report, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Q4 2020

Some might say Video Banking is already a "next-generation" technology, and in many ways it is. But even though using video to provide face-to-face communication with remote experts is a welcome addition to online banking, it is the next-gen combination of AI, chat, cobrowsing, voice, and video that truly creates a consistent customer experience.

Video banking must be deployed and built from the ground up to enable a seamless experience with unified reporting. Download this whitepaper to learn:

• The many uses of video banking
• Why next-gen video banking delights both members AND agents
• The power of AI and on-screen member collaboration in customer service
• How to ensure it becomes a seamless, unified and productive experience

Your credit union collects data on member behavior, member preferences, and overall member patterns every day. One of the most valuable actions a credit union can take is to empower employees to use raw data well, which leads to better business decisions and promotes future growth.

Credit union leaders use data to drive results. One proven way to accomplish this goal is to apply analytics and knowledge to gain meaningful insights.

Download this guide to get the seven disciplines of data management and understand how with these insights your credit union can: 

• Improve member experiences 
• Increase product penetration 
• Optimize marketing campaigns 
• Increase operational efficiency 
• Reduce costs

Rapid digital adoption continues to drive consumer interaction, which translates to growth for the credit card industry. For CUs, up to 50% of net income can be derived from credit cards. With the right strategies, your card program can become one of your highest earning assets.

Download this guide and learn how to enhance your card portfolio growth to boost your total revenue in six easy steps; including:

• Credit line increases
• Rewards
• Balance transfers
• How to target new accounts
• Analyze and utilize your data
• How to consistently market your program

Credit unions now compete in a data-driven world. Is your credit union keeping up on its data analytics insights? 

Credit unions that utilize analytics to help guide their business decisions and improve their key performance indicators can gain more market share in member loan origination, mortgage loan origination, payments, and a variety of other programs. 

Download this guide to gain a better understanding of trends and opportunities relating to members, branches, operations, dealers, and more through analytics. You will learn: 

• Why it matters
• How to get started
• Key insights to be aware of
• 5 types of analytics for credit unions
• 5 tips to getting the most out of analytics

Lenders in financial services recognize the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to transform underwriting and fraud detection — but one major hurdle to the broader adoption of these models has been concern over credit performance during an economic downturn. 

Over the last year, the economic stress from COVID-19 provided the opportunity to observe the performance of an AI underwriting model. 

Download this report for a deep dive into AI-enabled underwriting performance during the 2020 pandemic. You’ll learn how:

• At the peak of the crisis, impairment increased 40% less than the industry as a whole
• Fewer borrowers required a hardship program, and more of these borrowers began promptly making on-time payments
• The Upstart Risk Tier was 6 times more effective than credit score bands at separating the risk of payment impairment
• The ability for their AI model to separate risk tiers translated into significantly lower payment impairment rates for bank partners

As more and more credit unions turn to tech to meet the needs of members, the right digital solution can provide access to a wider audience as well as more comprehensive member data than the traditional credit score criteria. This is what KEMBA Financial CU discovered as they sought a fresh perspective to digital lending that could enable them to provide more people with access to affordable credit.

Download this case study to learn how this Columbus-based credit union successfully launched an AI lending program. You’ll get a first-hand look at how digital technology helped: 

• Improve data automation for faster loan approvals and risk assessment
• Serve more members and prospects across its community
• Offer higher unsecured personal loan amounts while tailoring pricing
• Cultivate lasting relationships with members with memorable brand experiences