TAMPA, Fla. — Efficient member onboarding is a continuing challenge for most credit unions, which is why Grow Financial Credit Union decided to test tablet technology to sign up members' offsite, but with a personal touch.
"We have been looking for a tablet application for some time that can be used out in the field to open accounts and that would enhance the member experience in that process," said Brad Sears CIO of Grow Financial. "Ideally, the same solution could be extended to the branch environment so that our staff can get out from behind their desks and have a more interactive conversation with members when they come into our office to discuss new services."
Initially, the $2 billion CU with 175,000 members and 26 branches planned to build the solution in-house because it did not know a vendor with a platform that could interface with its core system.
Then Sears learned that Symitar, a division of Jack Henry & Associates Inc., was partnering with Malauzai, a mobile solution provider. The goal was to interface directly with the Symitar's Episys core and they were looking for credit union beta testers.
The resulting product, new to the market, is Episys Anywhere. Symitar President Ted Bilke explained that it is a native app that enables CU employees to conduct common branch activities on a tablet.
"We have two credit unions that are using it [the solution] live. Grow Financial is an early adopter," said Bilke. "It can be used on the iOS operating system and on tablets. The key ingredient is Malauzai smart web apps, which is device agnostic."
Since the solution is hosted by Malauzai, Sears explained that the CU had to establish a secure connection from their servers back to the host and have WiFi-ready Apple iPads with 4G capability.
Field Tablet Testing
With an IT staff of 39, Grow Financial assigned projects managers and QA testers to ensure a smooth transition. "There wasn't any development work involved other than setting up the data connection back to the host and the data mapping. All application development was done by Malauzai," said Sears. "Most of our activity was in the extensive testing we had to do to uncover program bugs and validating data integrity and mapping."
With regard to training, Sears said it does take some time to get a good handle on the application, but required time for employees is not extensive.
"They are already familiar with the account-opening process and really just need to practice using the tablet for data input," he said. "We intentionally kept the process very simple and streamlined because it has to be a fast process to be usable in the field."
While still a new product, Grow Financial was able to test it recently at an offsite event. Employees were able to onboard seven new members that day, the process, Sears said, takes about five minute per member.
Early adopters have used the product in the field as well as in branch locations, according to Bilke. The goal, he said, is to enhance the member experience by providing better tools for employee interface.
"It's a combination of an in-branch capability so the credit union can offer more of a café style service environment," said Bilke. "The next level would be commercial banking, so smaller businesses could be targeted with specific capabilities."
Since the product offering is still new, Sears said the solution will evolve over the course of the next year to include new functionalities. For now, new members are giving it a thumbs up.
"The members we signed up at the event were impressed by the fact that we were using a tablet to do that and commented that it made us appear technologically progressive, which is exactly the impression we wanted to create," said Sears.
