Resource Center

The mortgage industry is transforming. Emphasis on competitive differentiation, improved member experience, and realizing greater efficiencies are top priorities. In today’s digital world, paper-based processes are costly and time consuming, offer a poor customer experience, and delay time to revenue.

Learn how your credit union can streamline and automate mortgage documentation processes and become more efficient and compliant; all while delivering a superior customer experience. You’ll also discover why lenders increased closing rates more than 90%.

Download this white paper and learn how to:

• Capture origination fees faster
• Reduce costs & increase efficiency
• Improve member experience
• Capture value at every stage of the lending process

A decade ago, credit union members were visiting branches, calling member services and sending emails to communicate while platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and smartphones were in their infancy. Communication channels were few and, as a result, easy to monitor.

Technological evolution has morphed the expectations of credit union members, and today they demand their financial institutions to use the platforms they prefer.

Monitoring these additional communication platforms, like text messages and social media, introduces additional complexity.  Compliance teams with heavy workloads must absorb and monitor vast amounts of data to avoid compliance violations and hefty fines.

Take a proactive approach on communication monitoring by downloading this white paper for a clear understanding of:

• The drivers transforming communication
• Key problems and risk factors credit unions face
• High-level solutions credit unions are deploying
• Options for monitoring and record keeping in the tech age

Beset by competitors and burdened by ever-shifting regulatory requirements, financial services firms are turning to cloud-based technology to gain better control over—and visibility into—spending.

There’s an emerging awareness spreading among CFOs as they strive to become less tactical and more strategic about Business Spend Management (BSM). In an effort to manage, control, and analyze spending, leaders are turning to technology. But only 52% of CFOs characterize their companies as “staying current” in terms of using technology.

Learn how technologies such as AI, cloud-based solutions and Community Intelligence offer credit unions the opportunity to efficiently reshape entire processes, speed up cycle times, boost risk management, reduce errors, and minimize the need for human intervention.

Download this white paper to learn how these technologies can drive BSM savings by:

• Improving staff efficiency
• Modernizing routine tasks
• Pinpointing areas of spend consolidation
• Highlighting areas of negotiation opportunities with vendors

Forward-thinking credit unions leaders are already evaluating preparation initiatives for the Current Expected Credit Loss (CECL) model; which may be the biggest change ever made to financial institution accounting.

For credit unions who wish to consider different methodologies during their scenario planning for the new regulatory guidance, it is important to have the proper loan-level data to run forward-looking calculations. Capturing this data is a prerequisite for testing methodology changes and planning for potential capital adjustments.

Download this guide for an overview of:

• Summary of CECL data requirements
• List of data points by methodology
• Important characteristics of data
• Data adequacy & third-party vendor checklist

When it comes to strategic planning, budgeting, and forecasting, most credit unions leaders are content with completing “the budget” without addressing the issue of uncertainty. This imbues a false sense of security, treating underlying assumptions as facts – masking both exposure and opportunity.

Scenario planning allows your credit union to mitigate this uncertainty and test opportunities that would be otherwise ignored.

Learn how scenario planning helps your credit union test the strength of a strategy under adverse conditions, eliminate bias or aspirational thinking not grounded in reality, and manage risk/uncertainty more effectively by modeling scenarios that break with current trends.

Download this eBook that explores:

• 4 types of scenario planning used by finance professionals
• Examples of scenario modeling at credit unions
• Conditions in which organizations are most successful with scenario planning
• The benefits of scenario planning

Would you like your staff to save ~50 minutes per loan closing and triple your loan volume?  Learn how one of the largest credit unions in the country capitalized on newfound efficiency afforded by digitization to target a new market segment. Wright-Patt went from a monthly loan capacity of $5M to $15M and closed $190M in loans in 2017.

In today’s digital age, members demand a more convenient lending experience, and compliance teams require document security and easy-to-follow audit trails. Don’t let limited resources stifle your ability to focus on growth and serve your business members.

Learn how to transform your commercial lending processes and download this case study for:

• ROI metrics
• Key benefits to member experience
• Electronic signature workflow
• eSignLive integration with nCino Bank Operating System

Credit card adoption, car ownership, and home ownership are on the rise among Millennials. However, credit unions aren’t winning their fair share of Millennials’ borrowing needs. Improving the digital experience might not be a winning strategy for credit unions, as most don’t have deep pockets to experiment with new solutions.

Ron Shevlin, Director of Research for Cornerstone Advisors,  delivers data-driven insights on how credit unions can compete with megabanks and large regional banks by reinventing the loan product itself.

Download this white paper for an overview of:

• How credit unions can reinvent consumer loans
• How Millennials make their borrowing decisions
• Myths about Millennial debt
• Unique challenges Credit Unions face in capturing their share of demand

Most credit unions aren’t required to implement reporting for the current expected credit loss (CECL) model until the fiscal year starting after December 15, 2020. Therefore, many organizations view the new accounting rule as less pressing compared to other initiatives.

Nevertheless, savvy credit union leaders are heeding the advice of the NCUA and taking advanced steps to ensure an effective implementation of this major change in estimating losses. 

Learn which steps your credit union should take today to be prepared when the NCUA begins evaluating implementation efforts.

Download this white paper which outlines these five practical steps your credit union can take now to prepare for CECL:

1. Coordinate with other departments
2. Understand loan level data collection requirements
3. Identify new procedures and changes to current procedures
4. Make a decision on building vs. buying a solution
5. Communicate with auditors and regulators

Successful, forward-thinking leaders understand that it is critically important to align employee behavior to the desired financial outcomes for your credit union. 

Well-designed incentive plans motivate member-facing employees to generate profitable growth within risk guidelines, rather than volume alone. They also move beyond stand-alone spreadsheets or other home-grown systems that can be error-prone and highly inflexible. 

Download this ebook to learn:

• Reasons why incentive compensation plans fail
• How to tie incentives to desired employee behaviors
• Recommended components for your incentive compensation plan
• Value of using Incentive Compensation Management solutions and tools

Despite a slow increase in interest rates, financial institutions continue to see an environment of very tight net interest margins. This presents a continuing challenge for sustainable growth and profitability.

This eBook provides tips and best practices your credit union can employ to accelerate performance improvement. Help your institution stay nimble, while aligning budgets and forecasts to long-term plans.

Download this eBook to learn:

· How today’s environment sets the stage for performance improvement

· Key challenges and desired performance outcomes

· Six best practices for budgeting and planning

Finance executives in credit unions today play a vitally important and significantly expanded role, helping to set strategic priorities through a disciplined planning process while navigating regulatory changes and market fluctuations.

This report is based on an annual survey of senior finance professionals in roles such as CFO, vice president of finance and treasury, and director of finance.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of respondents say their institution should be doing more to leverage financial and operational data to inform strategic decisions.

Download the survey report to get 12 key findings around this and other survey results, including implications and recommendations in the following areas:

• Readiness to manage performance in the current environment
• Priority areas in budgeting
• Status of performance analytics
• Progress toward better performance management

In order for Credit Unions to be successful, they need to  start thinking beyond "what" the results are, and focus on "how" and "why" you achieved those results. Analyzing all facets of your institution in a prescribed manner will help you understand:

• How did we get here and do we need to change course?
• Do we need to educate our employees?
• Are we investing in the right areas?

Complete the form to download this white paper for a more in-depth understanding.

One of the most difficult aspects of the budgeting process for any financial institution is management deciding the optimal trade-off balance between expediency and accuracy. This is most evident when choosing how to plan balance sheet items and their net interest margin.

Download this ebook and learn:

• Shortcomings of traditional approaches to cash flow planning
• Benefits of collaborative cash flow margin planning
• Three critical steps to successful cash flow planning for credit unions

As with most businesses, profitability is one of the most critical performance metrics for short-term and long-term financial health of financial institutions.

To gain a clear picture of how your members, branches, channels, officers and products contribute to the bottom line, it is important to consider the following aspects in your profitability analysis:

• Funds Transfer Pricing
• Determine Dimensionality
• Approach - Top Down or Bottom Up
• Non-Interest Income and Expense Allocations
• Assignment of the Loan Loss Provision and Risk-Based Capital

Download the ebook to learn more.

Profitability is at the heart of any financial institution's long and short-term strategy.

Download this white paper and learn:

• The components of financial institution profitability
• The benefits of an effective profitability framework
• How to overcome the challenges of developing an actionable profitability framework
• The key requirements to create a successful profitability framework

Funds transfer pricing has been an important tool for financial institutions for several decades. Over the years there has been considerable refinement in how to use FTP to dissect net interest margin, informing pricing decisions on account types like mortgage loans and money market savings to improve profitability.

READ THIS WHITE PAPER TO:

• Understand the profit contribution of balance sheet products such as loans and deposits more accurately
• Create internal accountabilities and associated targets for funds users (credit risk takers), funds providers (core deposit gatherers) and funding managers (interest rate risk takers)
• Price interest-earning products more knowledgeably based on market dynamics and target contribution levels
• Understand the profit contribution of a channel, officer, organization or individual member

Learn how your credit union can extract more value from funds transfer pricing.

Today’s consumers expect flexibility. They want the ability to interact with financial products online, use mobile apps, and complete financial transactions (e.g., applying and completing loans, opening new account and refinancing a mortgage) at any time, on any device.

Learn about the four key benefits to enable your organization to deliver speed, convenience, simplicity, reliability and security to its members. Discover how others, like Firstmark CU, are leveraging these benefits to save $8000 per month at a single branch.

Download this white paper on how you can:

• Speed the lending process
• Decrease documentation errors
• Reduce operating costs
• Grow the business

Each year, financial institutions are faced with the task of developing an annual budget. Nothing is more daunting in the planning process than the balance sheet and margin. If your institution does not measure margin contribution correctly, or measures it too simplistically, you run the risk of motivating behavior that dilutes the profitability of the institution.

Collaborative Cash Flow Margin Planning (CCFMP) provides a more effective solution that can greatly improve the financial planning and analysis function of your organization.

This white paper reveals:

• Shortcomings of traditional approaches to planning the balance sheet
• The anatomy of CCFMP
• Why CCFMP is a more effective planning solution
• Data-backed examples of what CCFMP provides