HOLYOKE, Mass.-The process used to be anything but simple when the $142-million Holyoke Credit Union found itself fielding questions from members such as, "Why am I getting overdraft charges?" and "Why is there a stop payment on my account?"
Those types of questions meant putting the member on hold and contacting Deposit Operations Specialist Kari Trombley, whose department would then have to launch a quick manual search.
"The problem was somebody would call because they were notified that there were not enough funds to cover a withdrawal," Trombley explained. "To the member it looked like they had enough money to cover, not knowing that there had been a debit card transaction or ATM withdrawal, often because a husband and wife were using the same account."
Particularly vexing, said Trombley, were pending transactions that had not yet come out of an account.
Today Holyoke CU is better serving members using an overdraft research app from COCC that allows the member service rep, in real time, to instantly call up a real-time relational database search of all the member's accounts.
Of some 120 COCC apps, "This is one we can't do without," said Trombley. "We first got introduced to the Overdraft Research app at a COCC member meeting. It was given to us for free but we would have purchased it."
The 15,000-member Holyoke had been using the app for approximately four months.
"The app shows which transactions are on hold up to one second before the inquiry," she said. "Everything is in one spot, showing the actual available balance. There's no wait to give member service."
It Takes Just A Second
George Sessa agrees with Trombley.
"The overdraft research app is really nice, because in one second it allows you to see every account the person may have attached to the checking account," said Sessa,-VP-technology with Stamford, Conn.-based Stamford Federal Credit Union, a $53-million CU with 4,700 members. "It shows whether there is a line of credit available, and if there is a savings account, how big it is. It shows you whether there are other debit holds on the account. You don't have to look in three or four other areas."
Sessa said the process happens several times faster, a significant factor when an MSR is dealing with an upset member.
At the time Stamford purchased this app it was able to take advantage of a group purchase price. "Some of the apps are fairly expensive, but this one was a no-brainer," he said. "It's getting harder and harder to provide good member service in an efficient manner. One way to serve members is to save a lot of time, and this app does that."
The apps provided by Avon, Conn.-based COCC, first released in August 2011, are built on open source extensible .NET technology. The apps plug into the core processing service with no interruption of business processes. .NET installations are typically supported by automated testing, meaning a user doesn't have to suffer the extensive regression testing required in upgrades to older legacy systems to verify that a new application will interoperate with the core system.
