STOCKTON, Calif.-While the three finalists for this year's CO-OP THINK Prize wait to see how their ideas fare, for the second consecutive year, the reigning winning project remains undeveloped.
Paul Yang, CEO at Premier Community CU here, won last year's $10,000 prize from MasterCard for an idea that would allow real-time P2P funds transfers at the ATM, even if the two users were members at different CUs. Yang recently told Credit Union Journal that CO-OP told him after winning the prize that it was focusing its efforts more on Sprig, a similar offering that allows members to transfer funds to other members (regardless of which CU they belong to) through CO-OP's Shared Branching network.
Yang said he is unsure if CO-OP Financial Services gave his idea serious consideration, but pointed out that "it would have cost a lot of money to develop it. I don't know that it's something that you can say 'OK, let's do it' and then implement it."
The winning idea for 2011-an attempt to link cell phone numbers and ATM cards by Matt Weidler at Evangelical Christian CU in Brea, Calif.-was also not pursued. THINK Prize rules state that neither CO-OP nor MasterCard are obligated to pursue the idea, nor is the winner obligated to put the prize money toward developing the project.
Yang said that some of the prize money went toward a small party for the credit union, while the rest was used for personal expenditures. The previous year's winner planned to put the funds toward a down payment on a house.
Yang did not seem disappointed that his idea has not been pursued, nor does he think that the competition should be altered to require either the winner, CO-OP or MasterCard to attempt to implement the winning concept.
"Just because you have these contests doesn't mean all of these ideas are implementable," he said, pointing out that there would be a number of security issues related to his idea, as well as start-up costs. "If you put some limitations or obligations on what one has to do (in the contest), it will limit what they could actually offer."
Yang said that keeping the competition in its current form allows for the widest possible participation and generates the greatest variety of innovative concepts, any one of which could be a game-changer for credit unions.
"Ideas don't just come because you have a contest like this, but in time if you continue to do this consistently, ideas will come that will be one of those shining moments that could be a turning point," Yang suggested. "I know banks are always thinking of something new-some grander way of doing things. As an industry, if we do this as a whole, I think we could have ideas that are better than some of the banks and other financial institutions may have."
