DENVER-The technology minds behind peer-to-peer lender Zopa's foray into the United States are now helping credit unions here collaborate to bring in new lending business.
CULoanZone.com, created by oFlows and conceived by the Credit Union Association of Colorado, gives potential members the opportunity to find competitive lending products from credit unions in metropolitan area.
With nudging from the state league, BCS Community, Denver Communtiy, Horizons North and Red Rocks credit unions agreed to test-drive the portal, which was done at no charge to the credit unions. The four CUs did, however, pool marketing resources to create ads that ran on the local NBC's affiliate's airwaves and appeared on its website, as well as print ads for cafes and community bulletin boards.
"I spent some time working with quite a few CEOs and showed them this approach and it started to germinate to the point it has. This is an opportunity for these credit unions to be very visible to the public in the Denver metroplex," said Rick Cranston, director of business development with the CUAC, adding the new offering is designed to assist in lowering costs, finding younger members and booking more loans.
Cranston said the site also provides a model of efficiency for potential members looking to get hooked up quickly with the most convenient credit union. "One of the things we did at Zopa was learn how to build the algorithms that can match people to the right credit union," oFlows CEO Scott Pitts explained. "We have technology that looks at where (potential members) live, where they work and any military affiliation, and we run a set of rules that tell us that this person is eligible for this many credit unions. Then we figure out which credit unions should be displayed to that user based on proximity to branch locations or internal business rules between the partner credit unions."
Because the firm does not charge the CUs to utilize the portal, oFlows instead collects a fee from the institutions for each new loan originated via the site. Though the proof of concept phase of the project is just underway, Pitts noted that the website has received hundreds of visitors and click-throughs. The next phase could include more CUs in the Rocky Mountain state, in addition to potentially adding deposit products. Pitts even has his eye on using the portal's shell for other avenues.
"If it catches on, the nice thing about this technology is that it is very flexible; we can apply this to other markets and to specific demographic groups," said Pitts. "We're particularly excited about targeting the next generation to raise awareness in that demographic. We can change the look, feel and the name of the site very easily. We have also built the back-end administrative portion of it so we can add new credit unions really quickly."
Pitts believes oFlows' technology can help facilitate the collaborative efforts CUs needs to compete and sees CULoanZone.com as a step in that direction. "We hear all this talk about collaboration but we haven't seen anything get over the finish line," Pitts noted. "But these guys, even though they're in the same market and compete with each other" they're still working together.
