SANTA CLARA, Calif.-Faced with the challenge of pleasing one of the most tech-savvy fields of membership in the country, always-innovative KeyPoint CU earned a spot in Credit Union Journal's Best Practices awards with its implementation of Facebook banking.
KeyPoint CU looked to the popular networking site after repeated requests from its membership, said Juli Anne Callis, the credit union's executive vice president and chief operations officer. KeyPoint's FOM is heavy with high-tech employees in "Silicon Valley."
"We are constantly conducting focus groups with our members, and we kept hearing Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, Facebook," she said. "Our members were spending time there, and one of our board members was a long-time engineer with Apple. The opportunity was there, the need was identified by our members, and the vision of the board-who are technologists themselves-allowed us to go out and do it."
Another key to implementing Facebook banking, Callis continued, was ease of use. KeyPoint launched the application using outsourced vendor support via MShift without purchasing new software to interface with its Open Solutions core processing system.
"MShift and OSI are a big part of the story. I could not do this with other suppliers," she said. "OSI's system was the cornerstone, then the next layer in the mobile technology was MShift. From there, we took an MShift solution and expanded it. We used a standard solution published by Facebook and OSI wrote code to make the interface work."
According to KeyPoint, mobile banking, short-text messaging service and live chat are key parts of its commitment to expand delivery options for members and prospects. Therefore, the Facebook application was the next logical step.
In November 2007, KeyPoint became the first CU to launch a full-fledged, integrated Facebook banking application with a secure single sign-on. Callis said members can access the application through the credit union's website, or they can add banking to their Facebook page.
The Facebook integration process was simplified, the CU said, because secure, single sign-on account access capabilities already had been established during the launch of its mobile banking services.
The Facebook application features live chat using Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP), adding third-party hosted Internet chat to the list of member service options. From Facebook, members have direct access to account information, news updates and community group discussions involving topics of interest to KeyPoint members. Non-members accessing the KeyPoint CU Facebook page receive an advertisement.
KeyPoint was awarded the Online Banking Report "Best of the Web Award" within 30 days of launching the offering. Other honors for the $850-million, 70,000-member CU include being named by Santa Clara County as the Business of the Year in 2007.
Ron Young, vice president of product strategy and management for Open Solutions, told CU Journal some of the company's financial institution clients are seriously thinking about how they are going to integrate Facebook banking into their online options.
"KeyPoint certainly is on the cutting edge, and now that its use of Facebook is being publicized, people are thinking of how to approach this."
Open Solutions has 675 CUs and 440 banks as clients, he said.
"There are a lot of tire kickers out there," Young assessed. "People are thinking about it and leaning on the edge, but when one institution actually does it and shows it is a value for the organization, it makes a difference. Look at the way online banking was."
Agreed Callis: "We had adoption of mobile banking and text banking long before other banks, because of our member base. The credit union is in the heart of the Silicon Valley and was founded by Silicon Valley companies. People experience more advanced technology."
Callis praised its original partnership with Open Solutions for allowing it to have "world-class mobile solutions."
"That is the genius of what OSI does," she said. "All the mobile services are carrier- and device-agnostic. The people who use mobile banking are Facebook users. Unduplicated users is up to 2,000, and some members use mobile banking, text banking and Facebook banking. These people really want to stay in touch with their money."
Young said Open Solutions is looking at applications such as mobile payments as its next "edge-teeterer."
"We are looking for new partners. We are continually looking and working with our customers to ask them what they really need. Another example is home/consumer check capture. We are still evaluating if it is a market opportunity, but we have lined up a partner to develop a solution."
Having cutting-edge technology "is not a credit-union-versus-bank situation," Callis insisted. She said credit unions are "right there" because "OSI doesn't give the technology to the banks first and make credit unions wait until five years later."
BEST PRACTICES
KeyPoint CU, Santa Clara, Calif.
Category: Facebook Banking
Provider: Open Solutions
