BOSTON-With banks primarily focused on merchant capture, one company said credit unions are moving quickly to step into a vacuum and leverage opportunities in consumer capture.
Moreover, the ability to drive down costs via cloud computing and the Software as a Service (SaaS) model has helped more credit unions to invest at a lower cost in consumer capture solutions, which is critical in the current environment, noted Richard C. Drew, chief operating officer with Vista, Calif.-based Bluepoint Solutions.
"We're riding a pretty good crest right now," said Drew of the company's success in penetrating the remote deposit capture, image-based item processing, and electronic document management markets. "We're doing so by getting creative with what people are looking to buy. Credit unions are really interested in consumer capture. Their attitude seems to be 'We have to do it. We have to get on the bandwagon.'"
Consumer capture permits the member to scan checks on a home computer and then transfer those items to their CU. The same is true for merchants capture. The user needs an Internet connection and a scanner. There is no software to be downloaded.
In the case of both consumer and merchant capture, the financial institution has the opportunity to drive fee income.
Credit unions concerned that the typically high cost of entry, said Drew, are learning that costs have come down via cloud computing and bundled pricing. Consumer capture is billed on a per-check and per-member, pay-as-you-go model, costs many credit unions pass onto members.
"(Consumer capture) is a sticky application," noted Drew. "Once the credit union gets the home banking set up, unless they upset the member the member will stick with it."
Drew said consumer capture is particularly effective for credit unions with military-based or rural fields of membership that are not readily served by the branch network.
Drew said that in general most consumers, and to a lesser extend, small businesses, remain unaware of remote capture, but that will change in a year or two, he observed. Remote capture creates a "conundrum" for the financial institution, acknowledged Drew, by removing a reason for the member to visit the branch where the greatest cross-sales opportunities lie. But he said the other alternative is losing the member altogether to another provider providing the service.
Installation of the solution is not difficult, said Drew, noting Bluepoint can handle the software/hardware install in a few days and the entire application can be running within 30 days, depending on the credit union.
The main message this year has been the inability of many institutions to make capital expenditures," Drew said. "That's what pushed us to cloud computing. And any hardware comes out of the operating budget."
