It's the Santa's workshop of retail banking: the Annual Bank Administration Institute (BAI) Retail Delivery Conference and Expo, here.
About 650 exposition elves offered up the holidays' hottest tech-including payment and online authentication technologies-but a number of CUs at the show told The Credit Union Journal they are already thinking beyond those popular boxes.
For The Credit Union Journal's fifth annual Technology Wish List, we headed onto the BAI Expo floor, asking credit unions "What tool or philosophy at BAI are you putting at the top of your technology wish list for 2007?" Here's how they responded:
HawaiiUSA FCU hopes to adopt the philosophy put forth at the CUNA Technology Council workshop, "Emerging Technology for 2007."
"IT should not be a silo," explained Mike Camat, senior vice president, technology group at the $775-million HawaiiUSA in Honolulu. "The Council described it as a 'merger,' where IT is in sync with business objectives."
Another wish: A truly 'full-service' ATM, one that serves food and coffee, added Jim Caswell, vice president, branch administration at HawaiiUSA.
Meanwhile, Teachers CU wants to hit the big screen with Cisco Telepresence, video conferencing that is "realistic" and "life-size," said Becky Banta Summers, vice president at the $1.6-billion credit union in South Bend, Ind.
"Even when the credit union is dispersed around the country, Telepresence feels like face-to-face communication and could help diminish the amount of time you spend traveling away from work and family," Banta Summers said.
Lonnie Stroud, chief administration officer at SELCO Community CU in Eugene, Ore., will ring in the New Year, without passwords.
The $650-million credit union wishes to install biometric fingerprint readers offered by US Biometrics, which can be in used in place of passwords at workstations to verify employee identity.
"Every 90 days we require employees to change passwords, and it's a mess, with people locked out of applications every time," Stroud explained.
Addison Avenue FCU saw tools that would help "simplify the business with paperwork reduction," said Shelly Hicks, central region manager at the $2-billion credit union's Houston location.
"Our branches are dying from all the paperwork," said Hicks.
As part of an effort to turn "tellers into sellers," Hicks' wish list includes the new S1 Corp. Enterprise Teller software, which combines most teller tasks onto one interface and features color-coded suggestive selling tips.
"Right now, we write down all of our leads on notepaper," she said.
And the credit union could liberate tellers from coin processing using the coin counting and gift and credit card dispensers from Coinstar, Inc., she added.
Lastly, the member verification system from Verid would help automatically eliminate potential members who aren't eligible, reducing the time the credit union spends on enrollment paperwork, said Hicks.
Purdue Employees FCU wants to deliver member surveys on the fly in branches, according to Gail Koehler, vice president, technology and retail delivery, at the $425-million credit union in West Lafayette, Ind.
The CFS data gathering device can collect member feedback at the teller window, providing real-time business intelligence to the credit union.
"Say you had problems with an ATM one day; you could adjust the survey to collect information about the members' experience," said Koehler.
Richard Syme hopes to see the Firethorn wireless banking and payment application come down America First CU's chimney.
"Firethorn makes mobile banking faster and more functional than other software," said the senior vice president of electronic banking at $3.6-billion America First CU in Ogden, Utah.
The CUNA Council evidently wants to take home the Passageways Portal framework: The Council named the Intranet solution 'Best in Show' at BAI.
CUJ Resources
For info on this story:
* www.hawaiiusafcu.com
* www.mecu.com
* www.purdueefcu.com
* www.selco.org
* www.tcunet.com
* www.cunatechnologycouncil.org
* wwwaddisonavenue.com
* www.americafirst.com
